The moment has arrived! We're actually doing it! We depart South Africa on Saturday (11th December, 2004) on the Governor's Cup race to St Helena where we will spend Christmas & New Year. Thereafter, we plan to carry on to Brazil, probably Salvador where the plans sort of end. We are not in a rush to get anywhere after that so we'll just sort of go with the flow.
We will eventually head up to the Caribbean to stay for who knows how long before making our way through the Panama Canal. At this stage, we have no time frame - it could be years before we traverse the Panama but we will eventually do just that.
We said our farewells to Simon's Town last week, rounding Cape Point in virtually perfect conditions and sailed around to Cape Town before moving over to the Victoria & Albert Waterfront. For those of you who don't know, The V&A Waterfront is a ourist mecca right at the working harbour in the city with incredible restaurants, shops, clubs and pubs galore. Looking out our port side (left hand side for you landlubbers), we have a magnificent view of Table Mountain (we couldn't get much closer and still be in the water) and out the starboard side (you know, the RIGHT hand side of the boat) we look onto the fabulous Cape Grace Hotel, playground of the very rich and very famous! We certainly have a prime spot but better not get too used to it, it could be the last time we're in such salubrious surrounds! We expect lots of sun, sea and sands but mega star hotels I doubt would feature too highly from now on.
We will have a third member to our team in the form of Roger McCormick, our club's boson. He's a very experienced sailor and we're sure will be invaluable to us with his knowledge, his support and his extra pair of hands. Despite the fact that we are embarking on this adventure and have played around on boats for the past few years, we have no experience out in the open ocean on our own. We intend to glean every bit of information out of Roger that we can in the time he's with us. He will go with us only as far as St. Helena then return on the RMS St Helena which will be returning to Cape Town with all the race boats aboard her decks.
Although sad to be leaving South Africa, we have been dreaming of this for many years and can't believe it's actually happening. We've severed most ties with land by selling virtually everything we owned (my car went a couple of days ago - I'll really miss that!) and our new life is about to start. We are leaving with a small flotilla of racing and cruising yachts most of which will be cradled back to South Africa after the race. Four of us are carrying on across the Atlantic and we've only just met the other three couples so hope we will be able to keep in touch over the miles.
As we'll be out of touch for a while, let us take this opportunity to wish you all a very happy Christmas and all the very best for the coming New Year. I hope we can keep in touch in the future.
PHOTO GALLERY:
Our Last Sight of Table Mountain
Our Last Sight of Table Mountain
