Departing Cape Town

Picton Castle cast off the dock lines and headed back to sea on January 25th, one day later than planned, because of some complications with immigration.  They wanted us to move from one wharf to another before they would clear us out of the country but we had to stop at the fuel dock first.  To move around the harbor we were required to have a pilot aboard but our pilot left when we got to the fuel dock and when we were ready to leave the fuel dock the new pilot never showed up.  The guys at the fuel dock said we couldn't stay there overnight but the guys at the harbor master said we couldn't move without a pilot so we spent several hours waiting for that issue to be sorted out.  Ultimately we got permission to leave without a pilot but by then it was getting dark and very foggy so we just moved to the outer anchorage and dropped anchor for the night Saturday night and left Sunday morning after breakfast.  Cape Town was great and I wasn't able to do everything that I wanted to do so I would be happy to go back again.  Cape Town also brought some mixed emotions because several shipmates departed the ship at Cape Town.  15 people left and 6 new people joined.  Even though I had only know my shipmates for 3 months, I feel like we had become friends and it was hard to see any of them leave.  I want to thank them all again for the companionship during the voyage from Bali to Cape Town and I wish them all safe travels in their next adventures.

Table Mountain peaking out of the fog as we depart Cape Town

There wasn't any wind so we motored for the first 24 hours before we got enough wind to set the sails and sail the rest of the way.  We had force 5 winds most of the rest of the way and we actually took in some sail to slow down, otherwise we would have arrived at Luderitz in the middle of the night.  The biggest factor during the 4 day passage was how cold it got.  Strong winds blowing pretty much right out of the South from Antarctica, along with the cold sea, due to the currents coming North from Antarctica combined to keep the temperatures pretty low.  Other than the cold, we had a pretty fast passage and arrived in Luderitz, Namibia about lunch time on Thursday, 1/29/15.