Richards Bay to Durban (including Safari!)

Monday November 11^th, Durban, South Africa.

Oh my but this is a grey, soggy, miserable day. On a scale of 1 – 10 of Irishness (where that's not a good thing) this is a 10. Karl has even broken out the Guinness slippers. On the other hand, on a scale of 1 – 10 of good first impressions Durban scores a 9.9 (0.1 deducted for the Irish weather). 

Seeking shelter at the yacht club.

We arrived here yesterday after a “quick overnight hop” down from Richards Bay. Now, I can't say that the trip was unpleasant in any way it's just that there was nothing pleasant about it at all. Overcast skies, not much wind at first, wind from not quite the right direction all the time, had to put the pole out, then had to gybe and take the pole back in (I'm too old to be working the foredeck, sliding around on a wet deck getting soaked in spray) and then the wind picks up just as we're trying to get into port [Karl says: Also chased by a lightning storm and then woken up to dodge another]. 

A grey approach to the coast - lots of high rise and the 2010 World Cup football stadium (on the extreme right).

Coming through the harbour entrance was a mix of the Mooloolaba bar with a good swell and the Wide Bay Bar, but there's no bar – it was just the ocean swell pushing us through the breakwaters. The port was actually closed so all the big ships were anchored outside with only the crazy little ones venturing in. Port Control gave us permission to enter “with caution”. 

Within the harbour we passed impressively enormous ships very close by.

Once we got here we had marina staff to take our lines (which was badly needed, it was not Karl's finest docking moment, sorry Karl) [Karl says: in mad wind!], the Royal Natal Yacht Club gave us free temporary membership and a welcome bottle of wine and a local sailor drove us around town to point out the safe/unsafe places and all points of interest. Such a warm welcome!

Before this we spent a week in Richards Bay. A grand spot but there's not much to see, it's a smallish country town, population of about 50,000, a large coal-exporting port, a surf beach Karl didn't get a chance to check out, some bars/restaurants around the small craft harbour and a pleasant spot over at the Zululand Yacht Club. 

Gráinne settles into Africa beside the comforting Dros bar.

Richards Bay small craft harbour, tug boat jetty and a swing.

A side effect of being in Africa seems to be Karl constantly singing “a-woom-away-a-woom-away-a-woom-away-a-woom-away....oooooooooooh, oooooh oooh oooh oooh a woom-a-way......in the jung-el....” . I'll spare you and not provide audio. 

Dock monkeys who actually tried to sneak (not very quietly) on board one morning.

Karl's also trying to perfect his local slang: “lekker, bru”, “sharp-sharp” and is dying to get an opportunity to order “slap chips”. After Zulu, Africaans and Hindi, English certainly seems to be a minority language. It feels like English is what people use to speak to each other in public but no-one uses it at home.

Karl has realised he may need to upgrade his lure size.

We decided to grab the opportunity to visit one of South Africa's most highly regarded game parks at nearby Hluhluwe-iMfolozi. First we went up to St. Lucia, a little coastal resort town, the night before the planned safari. Had a lovely afternoon soaking up a very chilled tourist atmosphere, enjoying the luxury of a hotel and indulging in sunset cocktails on the deck with a view of rolling green African hills across the river. 

Despite many warning signs we did not see any hippo. 

The next day was safari time! At 5am, along with the crew of Sissi, we climbed aboard an open-top four wheel drive and headed towards the park. This is Zulu country and we passed by lots of rural villages. Small villages, unpaved roads, properties with a main house and between one and three other round buildings (for the extra wives), cows and goats, cultivated fields and the occasional shop and traditional bbq restaurant. There was a lovely slow, early morning atmosphere of locals waking up and walking to the main road to catch a lift or the bus to work/school.

The crews of Gráinne and Sissi go bush.

Then we got to the park itself. A beautiful hilly landscape teeming with a huge variety of wild animals. 

Almost straight away we spotted an elephant. Then a herd of elephants crossing the road. There was some posturing from the adult females (actually a little intimidating when they get close and look straight at you and widen their ears and look really really big) and a couple of cute baby elephants. 

Adult female posturing to show who's boss.

Cute baby elephants.

There was a pattern of rounding a corner in the road to be confronted by animals using it as their own private highway. We saw zebra, rhino, giraffe (mainly their heads peaking out above the trees), buffalo, warthog (so ugly they're adorable), loads of types of antelope (beautiful creatures), a brilliant little dung beetle, cheeky monkeys, baboon and a variety of big and small birds. 

Wildlife photojournalist Karl.

Rhino. Awesome ears but apparently they're as blind as a bat.

What can you see through the binoculars?

Giraffe! (Honestly, look closely).

A warthog, a face only a mother could love.

Dung beatle - maybe my favourite thing in the park.

At lunch we followed the example of the animals and lay around in the shade of trees by a river while our guide cooked up a braai (South African bbq). It was a fabulous day, so much better than I was expecting and with a guide who gave all sorts of interesting information and was able to answer many tricky questions.

A couple of buffalo trying to keep cool in the middle of the day.

Hannu (Sissi skipper) trying to keep cool in the middle of the day.

Karl trying to keep cool in the middle of the day.

At the end of the day we got back to the harbour to find it was party time on one of the American boats. Everyone was treated to delicious meat smoked in their Big Green Egg (bit of an indulgence on a boat!). There were the crews of two Mexican boats (not a coincidence, owned by two brothers) so there was some tequila around, another US boat with Irish crew (to prove how small Ireland is it turns out he is the son of my old anatomy professor from UCG), a Dutch/Brazilian couple on their way back to Brazil from Madagascar, an English single hander (who came the proper route around the south of South America) and a Quebecois couple who on their last passage suffered the deaths of both their autopilot and a birdfriend. At the end of the evening the young 'uns went to the nightclub and the old 'uns went to bed. I'll let you guess which category we were in.

Then it was time to leave and head to Durban. The only thing standing in our way was a mountain of paperwork (and I mean actual paperwork, physical forms filled in by hand and records copied into big ledger books at various offices). Even travelling between ports in South Africa requires this (it would be easier to leave and re-enter the country), they seem to like to keep close tabs on who is sailing around their coast. Kristina Regina took four hours to complete this, Sissi took five. We were determined to beat their times (as revenge for them sailing faster). We hopped in a taxi and started well (when we emerged from Step 1 the driver assumed the office was closed, so rapidly had we completed the procedure – 5 minutes vs. Sissi's hour!), Step 2 went equally well. Then we came to the barrier of restricted weekend opening hours so had to abandon our attempt and restart in the afternoon. Once restarted it continued to go smoothly (despite the fact that employees of Customs have had their souls sucked out of them at some point) until the final hurdle: the yacht club getting the Big Thumbs Up from Port Control. Port Control weren't answering their phone and the club office was closing. Hmmm. “Could we go to the Port Control office in person?” ...ah, maybe but they didn't know where the office was. “But if we found out where it was might that work?” …..mmmmm, maybe. Our driver knew where the office was so we thought we'd give it a go. We talked our way past the security guard and arrived amid a bunch of surprised Port Control Officers in their office. It was really interesting to see the office with their big screens showing all the ship movements (well, one may or may not have been showing Gumtree) and hearing the radio traffic we hear on board. The staff were thankfully extremely helpful, they stamped our forms and gave us the Big Thumbs Up to leave. Yay! Beginning to get the hang of the African way of getting things done.

Arriving in Durban has been much easier. There are Ubers! Makes it so simple. All officials (even Customs) have been really friendly and efficient. Karl has changed within 24 hours from thinking this would be a quick stopover to planning to stay until January. So Durbs might be home for a while. [Karl says: Lekker bru!]