Overnight Alone

Finally on the 19 October 2022 it was time to leave the safety of the Cape Grace Marina in Cape Town behind us and head a little further north up the South African West Coast, where we had booked a berth for 3 months about a year ago, in the little town of Port Owen, which we later found out is a "drinking town with a fishing problem."

As you all already know we are not experienced sailors, Eric had done the trip to Luderitz to export Intle Breeze out of South Africa together with 2 friends and a paid skipper on board, but now the time has come for us to do this completely alone. Our very first over night journey together. We cast off our lines with ease and cruised through the Bascule and Swing bridge, leaving the beautiful Table Mountain behind us in the distance. We had checked the weather and it was easy sailing, we decided to do 3 hour shifts through the night, considering it is only just over 100NM it should be a piece of cake.

What we did not consider is just how edgy we would be, now that it is just the two of us, well needless to say neither of us slept a wink all night, we did run our shifts to schedule and simply laid down on the bed very wide eyed and not able to sleep, fear of something going wrong I guess, it is our first time after all. To be honest during my grave yard shifts, I actually felt like a racoon on crack, I was so bouncy and wide awake. We sail pretty close to the coast and there are loads of fishing vessels with no AIS on so you just gotta hope you see them with there little lights on, or that they see you.

We needed to time our arrival at Port Owen, as we were told we would be restricted by tide due to our draft which is 1,6m. The marina has not been dredged in a number of years, so we can only enter at the maximum highest tide and need to pass very close to the fishing vessels. On this particular day high tide was around 13:00. We had a really easy smooth sail through the night and morning, even considering our edginess and lack of sleep, as we got closer to the Berg River mouth we made contact with John the Marina Manager, as it is required that we get piloted in the first time, we needed to stop at the holding jetty to collect him, we set the time for 13:30 as that was when the tide would be at its highest.

We bounced outside rather impatiently for a while waiting for the tide, the water was calm and like a pond, however as the tide started to come in, so did the wind and by the time we needed to enter the river mouth it was blowing a gale, well over 20knots, both of us started feeling incredibly tense as we were well aware of the current we would be facing and now we had the wind to contend with as well.

It was now time to crack on and get into this marina, we have head phones on for ease of communication, Eric is at the helm and I am on the bow watching for anything unexpected, the wind is getting stronger as we enter the river mouth, we chat over the headset while I am attaching fenders and getting my lines ready, the tension is very evident from both our sides. We see John in the distance standing on the jetty waiting to be collected, completely unaware of our lack of experience with wind, current and rivers, well sailing in general.

As we try to line our selves up on the port side the stark realisation that we are facing howling wind and a relentless current sets in, it felt like nature was conspiring against us. Our first attempt we could simply not get close enough for him to board the boat, partially due to current pushing us away from the jetty, also something to keep in mind, is that Eric helms from starboard and cannot see his port side at all, due to boat size.

By now John is yelling so that we can hear him "come stern first" Well that felt equally as impossible, after almost mounting a sand bank, second attempt we collided with the jetty, in shock Eric motored forward after feeling the impact, at this point he just decided to motor back hard to maintain some control against the wind and the current, well we bashed the jetty so hard I was quite convinced that we would be paying a large fee for its reconstruction, besides the possible damage to the boat. Poor John was practically propelled onto the boat on impact.....Oh the relief you have no idea, he is finally on board, by now Eric's legs are like jelly as are mine, with shaking hands I re-arrange the fenders for our berth.

Over the headset I hear a very calm voice talking to Eric, like music to my ears, John says "I have delivered many of these leopard 50s I know the boat well" After a few minutes of motoring up the river, he realises that Eric is extremely stressed and anxious about what had just happened and offered to take over and put Intle Breeze into her new berth, without hesitation Eric hands over the helm, gosh and John, he made it look like child's play.

One more relief as we headed up to our berth, John had a colleague waiting on the dock to tie us down, that was amazing for me as my hands were still shaking, I did not need to jump off the boat and try to figure out what type of cleats I was working with.

Finally we are safely tied down, and able to have a chat and a beer with John on board. By the time he left we realise that we are totally shattered with both exhaustion and adrenaline, and in desperate need of food and something very strong to drink, of course we found the closest pub and headed right over, after having 2 of the best brandy and cokes I have ever had, lunch and a well deserved jagger bomb, we then proceeded to drag our weary bodies back to our floating home for a few hours sleep.

Thank you so much John Titterton, you played a great role over the months, in us gaining our sailing confidence. May you RIP