Cape Point not Cape Agulhas

I'm in Simonstown after successfully passing below Cape Agulhas.

I'd planned on posting a short clip of "me and the Cape" but my mood changed pretty drastically after I got close to Simonstown. Turns out that the local affects on the SE wind in the Cape Point area are tremendous. I had a tough time getting in. When I finally reached the anchorage/mooring area where there were flatter seas, I couldn't even steer the boat into the wind with the engine full throttle because the gusts would just keep pushing the boat off. Moving sideways fast with the bow aimed 45 degrees off the wind trying to pick up a mooring ball or drop the anchor single handed after getting no sleep all night cause of breaking waves getting everything drenched??? This coast is getting old...

I got the anchor down. You can hear the wind in the second half of the clip.

Leaving Mossel Bay maybe tomorrow for the Cape

Whatever happened to January being the easy month to get around this coast? I have never seen the five day windows of fifteen knots that other cruisers claim you get... Here are the effects of gale force winds out of the east on the anchorage in Mossel Bay. One of these refracted swells twisted the boat so forcefully that the mooring lines created enough pressure to crack the top flat piece of the wooden toe rail at the bow. I led the lines through the bow rollers after that....

Yet another South Wester...

Been here ten days and have seen three of these systems go by! You can see the anenometer on Anthony's boat, Grain de Sable registering over 40 knots... We are both tied to what remains of the Port Elizabeth marina after 80 knot winds came through and destroyed it a couple of months ago.

Should be heading towards Mossel Bay as soon as this low passes.

Turned the corner of Africa!

I made it from Durban to Port Elizabeth in one shot. I managed to set a new speed record on this passage, figuring that in one twenty four hour interval I did at least a hundred and seventy five miles. Just outside of East London, I had all sails down and glanced at the GPS to see that the current was moving me at 5.4 knots! Talk about terrifying. The actual sailing wasn't so bad as much as the knowledge that if a South Wester sneaks up on you, you are f****d! New Years was spent saying goodbye to the Indian and getting a small taste of what the Atlantic will be like - cold.

No main up? Lousy sheeting angle on the jib? You got a 35 foot boat but with a 24 foot waterline? The Agulhaus current will even make YOU sail at over ten knots!