The Wild Coast

Lying snugly in the Durban marina, we were able to sample more of this country’s generosity toward cruising sailors, and were able to meet up with more of our fellow cruisers, most of them diverted to this southern continental tip by the piracy up north.  As warm as the people are, though, and to paraphrase Mark Twain, the week of summer in Durban was the coldest we’ve been in two years.  It rained nearly every day, and the temperature hovered in the low 70s, taking its cue from the cool sea water, which drifts up from Antarctica as a counter-current to the mighty southward-flowing Agulhas current.

Days like those make us glad for our little catamaran with its near-360 degree windows, our covered “patio”, and our spacious interior.  We kept warm and dry, listening to East Coast Radio’s talk shows highlighting the political infighting between the African National Congress (ANC) and its Youth League, and the equally-consequential dispute over pending legislation defining the rights of the press and whistleblowers in the face of escalating accusations of corruption.  It’s a young democracy here, characterized by, effectively, a single political party, so the real debates and elections occur within the ANC party.  Local media coverage reflects this; the newspapers and radio focus heavily on the internal comings and goings within the ANC political party elite. 

Corruption is a common topic of conversation among the media and with locals; people are tired of it, and as we saw in Fiji and Indonesia, campaign posters in various government offices speak to an official policy of seeking to stamp it out.  To the campaign’s credit, we haven’t seen any of the petty forms of corruption so common in these other countries – forms often driven, as Jennifer points out, by a persistent discrepancy in the government wage base and the cost of living.  Unemployment runs 25% or so in South Africa, but it seems if you have a job, it pays well enough. Of course, we heard from one taxi driver that getting a private sector job can require some under-the-table payments, but in our dealings with officialdom, we’ve not experienced any demands for a little extra here or there.

No, the corruption here tends to be on grander, more personal scale – the abuse of newly-acquired authority to one’s own and one’s extended family’s benefit, at the expense of the fragile tax base.  This takes a more pervasive toll on a country’s psyche, especially if there is a single ruling party whose senior members seem consistently to benefit at the country’s expense.  Add to that the unique history of South Africa’s government (the ANC was an anti-apartheid armed rebel movement not so long ago, and is led nearly exclusively by Zulu and Xhosa officials), politicians’ mutterings about nationalization of key industries, and the effective political exclusion of the nation’s large and economically-prosperous populations of South Asians and Afrikaners, and you have a potent mix.

The weekly paper of record for South Africa

It also creates the occasional sad irony.  One afternoon, I was buying some groceries at the small, South Asian-run shop across from the marina, and at the last minute, added a copy of the weekly Mail and Guardian, South Africa’s “paper of record.”  Its cover featured another article on the newest corruption saga, and as I paid the South Asian man behind the counter, he asked if I was here with the COP-17 crowd – the regular global conference on global warming, which is being hosted here in Durban.  When I said I was on a sailboat, he launched into one of those racist rants that seem often to emerge from those of limited economic circumstances facing the drip-drip news of powerful people seemingly feeding off the public trough.  “We’re wasting millions on that damn conference! Those damn blacks are raping this country, stealing us blind!” he said.  Struck speechless at this outburst, I muttered something about how the government seemed to be cracking down on corruption, looking to extract myself from what should have been a simple commercial transaction.  

Leaving a bit embarrassed at the fellow’s sweeping and ignorant comments, but nonetheless sympathetic to his anger at a growing culture of corruption, I glanced at the paper and saw that the individual being pilloried in the press was a senior government official of South Asian descent.  The same paper also uncovered massive fraud and corruption in the white apartheid regime, including outright theft of some of the country’s gold reserves, so it seems as if my friend Patty’s small wooden placard, which we keep on the boat, is right: “Abuse of Power Comes As No Surprise.”  Race has nothing to do with it, my racist convenience store friend. 

That afternoon, on my way back to the marina, the possibility of a weather window seemed to be emerging, and the many cruising boats were abuzz with issues of timing and distance.  “When do you think you’ll leave?”  “How far do you think you’re going to go?”  News of politics and talk about the rainy weather gave way quickly to these seemingly more-pressing concerns, concerns driven by the particular geography of this southeastern coast of Africa. 

This part of the South Africa coast, between Durban and East London, is known locally as the Transkei – once the apartheid-era name of the Xhosan homeland.  It’s also now referred to as the Wild Coast, a reminder of its geographic remoteness and weather extremes.  From Durban to East London, a distance of 265 miles, there are no harbors and no places of refuge, even as the coastal waters are regular victim to sudden gales from the south, which, in addition to the challenges posed by any strong storm, create monstrous waves in the south-flowing Agulhas current.  As sailors and fishermen living in eastern Florida can attest, winds that run counter to a strong current – in that case, the Gulf Stream – create magnificent swells and waves that can swamp any vessel.

The next day, with a favorable weather window forecast, and in the company of several other boats, we let loose our dock lines, and headed out of the harbor, southbound once again.  It took us a while to “find” the Agulhas current; typically, it runs alongside the edge of the continental shelf, where the deep water shoals up, and water depths climb from the many thousands of feet to just a few hundred.  That day, a Friday, the current sat a good bit further out to sea, and we ended up turning south about 9 miles seaward of the shelf.  The water temperature climbed sharply, from about 70 degrees to about 77 degrees, and our boat speed over ground accelerated by about two knots. 

The Agulhas current, like all the major ocean currents, is, in effect, wind-driven.  Huge volumes of water, pushed westward across the top layers of the Indian Ocean by the prevailing southeast trade winds, collide with the African continent and, owing both to the geography of the coast and the submerged northward circulatory pattern of cold, dense Antarctic water, these tropical Indian Ocean waters turn south.  By the time they get just south of Durban, it’s a raging sea river – at times, we were being pushed along by 4 to 5 knots of current – making for extremely fast southbound sailing.  

Sunrise off the Wild Coast, South Africa

The next day, now well south of East London, and beginning our westward turn around the southern tip of Africa, the promised weather window began to close earlier than expected.  The winds, forecast to swing to the northeast, and thus parallel the Agulhas, were lingering, blowing from the southeast and building up the seas.   The following morning broke cold, wet, and windy, as the weather began to turn against us.  The only blue sky came at dawn, a wedge-shaped sliver on the eastern horizon, a red sun trying to burn its way into another day.  We pressed on, pushed by the current and the gathering winds, and our 24-hour average, noon-to-noon, was nearly 10 knots over the ground, a remarkable feat made possible only by the mighty Agulhas current.

By mid-afternoon, our small convoy of sailing vessels was talking among ourselves on the VHF radio about our options, and eventually, separately, we each decided to turn into Port Elizabeth, about 130 miles south of East London.  By late evening, the seas had built to 4 meters or so, and the steep sloppy seas, dimpled by a light rain and illuminated by not-so-distant lightning, made for a bumpy, cold and miserable night.

Cape Gannets, in formation

We might have made it to Mossel Bay or Knysna – another 200 miles or so west – but at best, it would have been a slog, testing the boat and its crew.  We’ve learned that the sea exacts its toll; it gives us a current, but challenges us with the wind direction.  The wise sailor takes what he can; lives to sail another day; and remains flexible as to destination.  At dawn, Port Elizabeth lay just 15 miles due west of us, the skies were beginning to clear, and small flocks of 6-8 white-winged, blue-beaked Cape gannets were skimming the waves around us. The northern landscape of this large bay is lined with huge sand dunes, topped by green vegetation.  It was a cool 67 degrees outside, and the water temperature had plummeted to 66 degrees, down significantly from the 77 degrees in the Agulhas, and though you wouldn’t know it by our thermals and foul weather gear, it was coming on summer here as well. 

We had transited the Wild Coast, and south of us, if we could just see over the clearing horizon, lay Antarctica, just 2000 miles away.  Port Elizabeth is the center of a commercial complex known as the Nelson Mandela Bay Metro Center, home to one of the World Cup soccer stadiums, and the major city in the Eastern Cape region, native home of the Xhosa culture.  We thought we’d spend a few days here, at least, before continuing our now-westbound journey around South Africa.  Instead, one of our fellow cruisers, having entered the small enclosed harbor, let us know of a sizeable surge inside, making docking untenable.  Too rough at sea last night, and too rough in the harbor this morning.  

Jackass penguins, off Mandela Bay, South Africa

 We make another adjustment, as happily, the weather seems to have begun to conform to the earlier predictions. So it was back out to the Indian Ocean and to what was left of the Ahulhas current, under a brighter sky and easing winds, and head east to Knysna.  On the way out of Mandela Bay, we spot a humpback whale too shy to be photographed, and small groups of jackass penguins, bobbing and diving for food. 

Now westbound, having turned the corner of the African continent, we’ll tune into East Coast Radio, check up on the ANC infighting and hope against hope for more current in our favor. Unfortunately for westbound sailors, the Agulhas meanders southward from here, dissipating in the cooler southern waters where the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet.  We’ll be lucky to avoid one of its north-flowing countercurrents as we head to Knysna.  Flexibility, and yes, we’re sailing another day.  We take it as it comes.