November 1998
Madagascar to Mozambique and Richard's Bay, South Africa

The first leg of our journey toward the Cape started in Madagascar, 1100 miles
north of Mozambique and 2000 miles from The Cape. We'd started the trip with
urgency after receiving a Ham radio message that Nancy's dear mother had brain
cancer. We set sail for Richard's Bay that day. As hard as we pushed and tried
though, we couldn't beat bad weather and the traditional "South African welcome,"
a southwester that strikes longer and stronger than the Pacific's southerly busters.
Lovely. Ten days into our trip, one of these nasty storms was forecast and we
opted to dodge in behind Isla de Injaca, just seaward of Maputo, Mozambique
and 180 miles north of Richard's Bay. Two other lucky boats joined us, one an
experienced South African catamaran delivery and the other a French sailor.
Inshore of the muddy sandbanks and in a beige world of high sand dunes and
chocolate water, Tethys lay to anchor at bizarre and uncomfortable angles as the
strong tides and winds fought for control. Grating chain raked the hull half the
tide. Wind and rain blew down the companionway funneled by the dodger for
the other half. When we renewed the bridle chafe gear every few hours, the
harsh wind slapped us around without mercy.

Next day at the crack of 1100, we got a thumb's up from the Durban Sailing
Academy for an 18 hour weather window to Richard's Bay before the next front.
Relieved, but taught with nerves again, we motored by the French boat and
Nancy shouted to them that we were off. With a wild wave and frightened smile
he raced around to up anchor and follow us through the swirling muck of
current in the unmarked channel. Our departure from Mozambique was nearly
as exciting as our arrival had been. Tethys was set 75 degrees off our courseline,
as we motor sailed against 2.5 knots of incoming tide trying to keep up with our
new South African friends. The Frenchman frantically motor sailed to keep up
with us. Despite a language barrier, we knew how he felt.

Three hours after weighing anchor we finally passed the Portuguese fort
lighthouse. The South African catamaran was well clear of the land and flying
fast. The wind was fickle as we tacked our way over the last shallow bank. At
0200 we finally got the evening land breeze and seven hours into our 18 hour
weather window, the wind went NNW at 20 knots then to 35. Now we had a
wind that Tethys excels in and we had 66 miles to go. We rolled out the yankee
on the pole to port and prevented the reefed main to starboard.

Then the bar started dropping. 1012, 1010.5,1005. The good news was that it
hadn't started to rise. According to Chris Bonnet's old article xeroxed a million
times back in Thailand, we could expect 3 millibars rise before getting hit with
winds of equal strength or more from the opposite direction. We quit looking at
the bar. If it doesn't rise we have no problem. Just go fast and cut every inch off
distance. At 1600 we were abeam Cape Vidal, just outside the 100 fathom line
with a 1-knot favorable current. The South Africans just ahead of us were in a
pod of Northern Right whales and making 7 knots very close to shore reefing as
fast as they could for the inferno of lightening and opaque sky ahead of them.
The heat of the storm was just beginning on land.

To have any chance to make harbor before the storm, we had to move faster. The
South African skipper gave us a waypoint where he had found 4-5 knots of
current on past trips. We headed out for the 200-fathom line, near his waypoint
and only 4 miles seaward from our present position. We were doing 11 knots.
With more current we hoped we would beat the front. We were in for a ride.
When the current caught us it was like being swept along in a riot crowd.

Relieved, we watched the miles to Richard's Bay go down fast on the GPS. We
spoke to a northbound tanker on collision course and he reported strong squalls
15 miles ahead. He altered course to seaward. Flying along at 12-knots over the
ground, we dug out fenders and docklines buried deep and unused for the last
five months of island hopping since we'd left Malaysia. Tethys was surfing some,
so we put the third reef in the main on the fly, then rolled in half the yankee. Our
speed held, but the weather helm eased. I went below to replot our position, as
now our set was 55 degrees south. The radar began to show land at 12 miles, but
it didn't match the contours on the chart. The sun began to set and fireworks
started erupting very close behind the hills of the sunset. Nancy put on her
heavy foul weather jacket and started hand steering. Waves were 3m even
though the 3 knot current and the 35 knots apparent wind was all going our way.
Then the wind started backing. Reluctantly I recorded the rising bar. The hot
volcanic "berg" wind shot through the stormy clouds as close jagged lightening
extinguished the sunset. Nancy called me up from below to roll in the rest of the
jib from the pole and secure the fore and after guys as the sky opened up to
drown us in rain and the wind shifted to the southwest.

From that moment it was impossible to hear each other. The lightening let us see
too much, then blinded us. The wind switched direction 180 degrees at speeds
more than 55 knots in gusts. Tethys was in a boiling sea of southbound current
against the stormy winds. Seas were now 4-6 meters abeam as we headed
sharply north in a breaking sea that still wanted to take us south. We were being
set 135 degrees in just two miles of the onset of "the welcome." Dripping from deck
work, I plotted and replotted on soaked salty charts. Nancy steered to the
compass guided by the GPS, ignoring an ever more confusing radar picture. I
would step up in the narrow companionway every few minutes from plotting
only to find nothing recognizable on the radar. She would point to a feature and
frustrated I would find it minutes later on another quadrant of the chart. Braced
like a laser sailor, I could see Nancy in the strobe light lightening holding the
tiller tight across her lap, staring through the pouring rain and spray ahead.

At the height of the blow and closing the coast, we were aiming for our second
cape waypoint, Cape St. Lucia as South Africans had insisted we do. Sweeping
more and more to the south, we kept aiming for the cape 20 miles north of the
Bay. Finally, through the maze of uncharted shark nets, the Frenchman's frantic
calls for a pilot, a block on channel 16 due to someone with a handheld radio
holding down the transmit button and the search for wreckage and crew from a
Mayday a few miles to our north, we crept into Richard's Bay at 1:30 am
November 6, 1998. Our British, Swedish, American, French and South African
friends were there to take our lines. There was no champaigne, but there was
fresh milk, homemade bread, two Washington apples and a key to the showers.
Next day, Nancy flew home. I joined her 6 weeks later to help care for her
mother.

We stayed with her at her home until she passed on. Then we took some healing
time doing teaching deliveries of two boats in the Pacific, one from San Diego to
the Marquesas and the other from Raiatea to San Francisco. We returned to
Tethys in December, 1999.