Pemba to Richards Bay
Trip Start
Oct 22, 2006
1
22
Trip End
Ongoing
Richards Bay, South Africa
Saturday, December 8, 2007
I think that the last time I wrote was in Pemba so I'll go from there...
We left Pemba (after a few nights out of dancing) with a change in crew. We now had Tim and Sarah, a couple of Germans who were technically supposed to be studying in Dar es Salaam, but were really backpacking east Africa while still getting the credits! We also had Gal, a young Israeli woman fresh out of her service, and starting a tour company in southern Mozambique. The American decided to stay there last minute. Before heading off from Pemba, I was given the opportunity to do a little inland travel. This opportunity was given to me by a South African man who runs a forestry project in Mozambique processing abandoned timber, replanting and teaching sustainable foresting techniques to local Mozambiquans. Gal had been working for him for awhile, and he needed someone to go with her in his truck to deliver some supplies and make a lumber pick up to one of their more remote northern projects. I jumped at the opportunity for an expense paid trip inland. Me and Gal went off together, taking turns driving the sometimes dodgy northern roads, enjoying the countryside while heading to northern Mozambique near the Tanzanian border. I did not see much wildlife, only a few baboons. The project location was very interesting, and a local Makhua worker took me for a tour of his village showing me his style of life, and giving me home grown beans, peanuts and piri piri (hot hot chillies). The local tribes, Makhuas, have a very beautiful style of music, being played everywhere. A lot of the older women also had face scars, done for beauty, and a large black cylinder pierced into their bottom lip. Otherwise the style of dress was typical, being a sarong skirt, tshirt of any kind and another sarong covering their head. The country life seemed to be a simple one and all throughout the countryside I noticed that there was very little agriculture being done in the region. There were many bushfires started by the locals as they practice slash and burn style horticulture, and produce a lot of charcoal for cooking. Not too sustainable. We only stayed one night in a tent there before starting the long road back. It was my first night spent on land since I took to the sea. I was shocked by the amount of birds that were singing in the morning. There were also some rather annoying roosters, and I am very glad that roosters aren't sea birds! Otherwise the trip was rather uneventful, yet peaceful. Once we returned to Karaka, it was off again. We travelled about 50 miles down the coast to a small bay the first day catching a large barracuda, and seeing many whales. Sarah then decided to leave with some fishermen the next day not being able to handle living on a boat, and there were four of us left. We spent some time cruising down to Memba bay. I was shocked by the amount of humpback whales that we seen. Everyday we seen at least one or two, often coming within 20 meters of the boat!!! We never ventured into the water to swim with them (I was a little nervous of it) but the people in another boat we know cruising the region, a woman did and said it was exhilarating. I definitely felt humbled by the shear size of the beautiful creatures. We spent quite alot of time in the Memba bay region just doing nothing but relaxing, cooking, snorkelling and just plain taking it easy. The locals we met were either super nice, with fish and squid and lobster to trade, or else they would just come up and beg incessantly expecting us to give them anything for nothing. I however, do not do this and would rather support those local fishermen who are willing to trade or offer a service. I must say that Mozambique is the worst country I have ever seen for people shamelessly begging, like as if I am just a rich free store who owes them food and clothes. I believe that 25 years of war has degraded the people so. There are still however plenty of honourable fishermen who sing while they work, always ready for a laugh and are willing to trade respectably. From Memba, we went to the bay of Nacala, and then after another nice quiet time we were ready to head the 80 or so miles to Ilha de Mocambique. It was then that we started to realise the powers of the sea in this more southern region. All down the coast of Mozambique there is a strong south bound current. It can reach up to 4 or more knots in some places. This is great for South bound boats unless the wind is blowing a gale from the south, when the conflicting combination causes huge violent swell. This was just the case on our first attempt to Ilha. We weren't really prepared for this type of weather and had to quickly reduce sails while fighting the 35-40 knot wind on our nose, and the consequent 4-5 meter tall waves slamming into our bow producing the effect of whamming a concrete wall again and again. We quickly decided to turn around and return to our protected anchorage. The next day, after more carefully tying down everything in the boat, we attempted it again. This time we made it another 30 miles farther down the coast, before hiding away in another protected anchorage. On the third attempt we finally made it as the wind had much abated and even turned back NE as is the trend here. It was with this nice sailing that we finally reached the port of Ilha de Mocambique. This island the former Portuguese capital is an international historical site. Reaching there is like returning in time to the 1500's. As you enter the pass into its bay, you are greeted by a formidable fort with cannons pointing in all angles. It was easy to see that an enemy ship would have a hard tile penetrating the stronghold. Indeed this is the case as there are a reported 80 ships sunken in the waters surrounding the harbour. Apparently the fort was attacked by British, French, Arab and Dutch ships, all to no avail. Now that's some fort!!! As you walk through the town, it is easy to imagine the place in all of its vigour so many years ago. All of the original buildings still stand, although a lot of roofs and walls have begun to crumble. The large stone, Portuguese-style buildings are now inhabited by many different families who build their huts against the standing walls, and plant their gardens in the now totally open and exposed hallways and courtyards. There are beautiful cobbled roads with large statues of fat Portuguese men, cannonballs, cannons, tiled walls with arched doorways everywhere. There are people on the streets selling old coins that they have found and beads made from precious gems found in the beach sands from sunken ships. Otherwise the town has a very empty quiet feel, and there were surprisingly little people there. There was a downside to this otherwise charming island. This was that, once out of the main historical part of the city, I experienced some blatant racism. Once, when I tried to ask directions, a man just refused to even acknowledge me. Also, when me and Gal ventured into the more ghetto area, a young child was scared of Gal, because she is white. Her mother, making a joke, pushed the crying child into Gal saying that if she was bad the ghost monster will eat her. Also I was constantly getting doubled prices, and asked for money and food. Pretty shitty experience. Tim left the boat there. Another boat, La Barca, with an Australian family that we partied with in Chargos and Mada arrived also. We thus started to travel southward with them. We celebrated Halloween there with a party aboard Karaka. We made a very strong 'jack-o-lantern punch', had a pot luck dinner and told scary stories. I got dressed up as Medusa with my dreads wired up like snakes! It was a very fun night. After a few days in Ilha, we went onto the Primerias Islands. This is a chain of islands, some of them being no more than exposed reef, with little inhabitants, although lots of fishermen. The trip down there was really rough, and we ripped our only main sail, so that now it must stay triple reefed. We did however break our speed record by going a whopping 12.1 knots the islands would have been more amazing if it hadn't been for the northerly gale that was blowing, creating uncomfortable swell, and wind in the only southerly protected anchorages. We tried going into a more protected anchorage one day on the mainland, but that didn't turn out so well. The anchorage was well protected, but there were hundreds of fishermen around, and a few of them took it to be their duty to drive us away. They did this by yelling al us and pretending to get their fishing lines caught in our anchor chain, as if they had to fish right where we were with the entire coast free all around. We finally did leave preferring a rough anchorage to their hassles. Otherwise, around the islands, the fishermen came up and sold us the biggest lobsters I've ever seen!!! The fishermen were not beggars, but traders, which I respected. They did piss me off a little though, when one day, us and La Barca decided to have BBQ lobster on a fire on the beach of one of the small islands. The fishermen, who stay there for 30 days and fish, then go back home with their dried catch, found us quite interesting, and soon enough there were at least 20 or 30 of them just sitting on the beach staring at us. It was really annoying because I just wanted a quiet afternoon with some privacy. We ended up not staying there long and headed straight down to the marine national park of Bazarutu archipelago. We ended up skipping much of the middle coast, but I was starting to get sick of Mozambique. The voyage took 2 ½ days, 350 miles. There was a bit of rough weather at the start, but Karaka, a sturdy boat handled well and we made it no worries. We caught one skipjack tuna, which was delicious!! In Bazarutu Gal left the boat, leaving just me and Tom again. In this wonderful place we finally got our privacy and enjoyed some pristine waters. The snorkelling there was the best since Chargos with tons of fish, octopus and the like. No fishermen were around as it is a park. The first island that we stopped at was actually a bit creepy. There was a little lodge town built there that was totally abandoned. What happened was that at the beginning of the war, when all Portuguese landowners were kicked out of Mozambique, the man who owned this island was able to stay (he wasn't Portuguese), but he still abandoned it, and the lodge was shut down. Some of the building were not even finished being built, and all are restorable. There is also a tomb there of the owner's wife and child who died there giving birth to the child. The island is named after her. We spent one very relaxing afternoon there in total privacy having a bbq fire on the beach, cooking giant oysters that we picked fresh from the rocks, swimming and just plain relaxing. We went to two other anchorages there near the Bazarutu Island. This island is truly amazing. It is like being in Egypt or something as the island is just large rolling sand dunes, like a real mini desert. The dunes are tall enough that Tom even went surfing down them one day!!! After our wonderful time there, it was off to Inhambane, another 150 miles down the coast. It was just me and Tom sailing alone together. The wind was perfect for it, which helped, but it is tiring to do constant 3 hour watches. Not much sleep... In Inhambane we stayed in the north of the bay at a place called Linga Linga. It was a totally peaceful place, without a real village there, but instead there are lodges being built, but as of yet not ready. The few fishermen that were around paid us no attention. We attempted to go to the big city of Inhambane to check out and do some stocking up. We made it there alright, and went to town for one day, but when we returned, the officials came right over to our boat. They were totally corrupt, and demanded that we paid fees that we knew were not necessary. Tom plainly refused, and they did all they could to give us troubles, trying to take our boats papers, and passports. They were really quite aggressive. Tom is a hard ass, and super good at dealing with this type of official, and flat out refused to give them anything at all, kicked them off the boat and told them to their face that he does not tolerate corruption!!! We then immediately picked up anchor and went back to our calm retreat Linga Linga. We ended up never checking out of Mozambique at all, and never got any problems because of it. At Linga Linga, a couple other boats were anchored (our friends La Barca and Artabaze amongst them) all waiting for a weather window to head further south to Richards Bay. We ended up waiting over 10 days, as there was one south front after another. As the journey was a good 390 miles a long window was needed. We were treated by having a flock of flamingos pass by our boat on a couple of different occasions. That was truly impressive. Throughout the fronts that passed, the anchorage was very rolly with big winds and rain and dark ominous skies. On those days we just hid out inside watching movies and reading books. On one of the more agreeable days, I made a trip up a channel to a little village with the La barca family in their dingy. This was the most enjoyable village I was in the whole country. People were super friendly and not racist at all. There were tons of lush plants all over, and a real laid back feel. We even bought some still alive prawns for about 2 euros a kilo!! Yummy!! Eventually a weather window big enough opened up, and we decided to attempt the passage south. This day turned out to be cursed as every boat that attempted to leave that day ran into some type of problems. It was rather eerie. Our attempt was brutal. It started as we lifted anchor and noticed that the line and buoy that we attach to our anchor had been ripped, the buoy end missing. This was curious, and we thought maybe it was a fisherman. We would later discover that the line was actually wrapped around our prop. When I went to raise sail, one of the jib hanks ripped, not too good, but not yet serious. We made it out the pass, and into the open sea, only to discover that it was super rough with a big swell right on our nose and little wind to propel us. All of a sudden the chain on the steering clutch came off, leaving me powerless to steer the boat, so Tom ran down to put it back on only to discover a 20 L pot of paint had leaked all over the engine room with terrible fumes. The chain came off again later right in the middle of a tack (therefore the worse possible time) we kept on, and when I went to raise the jib again, the jib halyard broke!! We decided it was all too much, and headed back for Linga Linga to clean up the boat and make repairs. On the way through a very dangerous pass at low tide with higher than the boat breakers all around, the motor quits, due to a clogged fuel filter. As the jib was not up due to the broken halyard, and our triple reefed sail, we did not have enough speed to direct the boat. We got battered by a few big ones and was at a real risk of grounding and flipping the boat altogether. I quickly raised the jib on a back up halyard and we were able to gain control enough to evade a more serious situation. Tom later said that that was the closest he has ever come to losing Karaka. Scary shit. Luckily the engine fired up again for long enough to navigate the tricky pass and we almost made it to the Linga Linga anchorage without further occurrences. Almost. As it was super low tide, and we were following the path that we took at high tide we ended up bumping the sandy bottom, and even getting stuck on a sand bar , with the engine dying again of course just at that moment. The waters were luckily calm there, being inside a bay, and the motor started up again for long enough to get off the bar and finally make it to anchorage. Of course the engine quit again 50 m from the anchoring point, so we ended up sailing into place. We both let out a huge sigh of relief when we arrived, and quickly went over to the other boats to tell our tale, hear their stories and have a relaxing lunch together. We all decided that that day was just cursed, and to try again tomorrow. So, after making some repairs, and servicing the engine we had a well deserved good night sleep and were off again the next day. That's the thing about sailing; you gotta keep getting up and getting out there because the weather doesn't wait for you. Honestly though we were both so positive the next day that everything would go well, because we had just about everything that could go wrong, did go wrong on that one terrible day. Our hopes were met as we had wonderful sailing the next couple of days out. It took us 72 hours or so to reach Richard's Bay. We caught many fish. The first a sailfish, was too big for our rig, and broke the leadline, narrowly escaping our bellies. The next three were all Mai Mai (also known as Dorado) a beautiful, big yummy fish. We kept the first and feasted, but let the other two go, as they were really too big for us, and this is a fish that you cant dry, and doesn't keep well. The final night of the passage got to be a bit rough with 30 plus knot wind (luckily from behind not the nose), and we reduced sail all the way down to just a tiny storm jib and the mizzen, not even the main. The steering got so difficult that we would only do one hour shifts, and eventually Tom had to do all the steering as it was too hard for me. We made it, and arrived on the 3rd in Richard's Bay South Africa. I do not believe that I have ever been so happy to arrive anywhere ever. After all of the weather waiting, rough anchorages, lack of food and water supplies and waiting repairs, we finally made it!! On the first day, we tied up to a totally safe dock, filled our water tanks, went for a beer and pizza, had a hot freshwater shower and slept sooo soundly!!! There was even a woman who came up to the boat and asked us if we wanted to have our laundry done!!! Now that is my idea of an arrival!!! The next day Tom had the pleasure of dealing with totally non corrupt officials, and I was able to go to a grocery store. I was totally culture shocked when I entered the large shopping mall that has the supermarket. It totally overwhelmed me to see all of these rich ppl running around expensive buildings buying Christmas presents and eating fast food. I can live the rest of my life without that. I did have the absolute pleasure of doing some grocery shopping in a real supermarket!!! I was wide eyed and drooling the whole time!!! They have everything, even broccoli, peaches and mushrooms!!! This may not seem like much to you, but after three months of beans, starches, the occasional canned veggie, fish or fruit, the selection was awe-inspiring. I have decided to rename heaven Pick'n Pay. I love the land of everything, the only problem of course being that everything is not free, and I will have to be extra careful to be able to keep on my third world budget in a first world market. Although I am certainly not converted to worshipping capitalist society luxuries, I am starting to see some of the benefits of a first world country. One example: trained and knowledgeable doctors. I was feeling rather ill when I arrived and immediately searched out a medical clinic. It was amazing, hardly any waiting time, and for 15 euros I was seen by a doctor and given all of the medications I needed!! I like this system. I remember the long waiting times in Canada, and how family doctors were literally unavailable, and then although the doctor was free the meds cost an arm and a leg unless you were lucky enough to have a job that covers it. S.A. definitely has a more practical health care system. I found out that I have a virus called glandular fever. It was contracted through respiration and caused my throat glands to swell to large awkward lumps. I also am very easily exhausted and feel slight nausea. The only treatment is time and vitamins, which luckily I have a lot of. It really isn't as serious as it sounds; I just have to take it real easy, which is what I try to do anyways!!! Well, if you've read this far, good on ya, and I'll give those little eyes of yours a well deserved break...until next time...
