Farewell Durban

Well the boat is fully packed with months worth of food, the diesel and water tanks are full, the laundry's done, the chartplotter has been loaded with exciting new charts, everything's been oiled and polished to within an inch of its life and now we're just waiting for a weather window to leave. And saying goodbye to all our favourite spots in Durbs.

The very serious job of inventory of stores including the all important toilet roll.

We've watched all the other “internationals” set off for Cape Town and beyond and now there's just us and one other boat left – and even they attempted to leave already but turned back when faced with some nasty squalls and thunderstorms. We're really feeling like locals at this stage. And the whole vibe of Durban has changed after Christmas. It turns out that December really was a major pre-Christmas blow out and not at all what Durban is usually like. The esplanade is quiet, just a few runners and walkers. There's no broken glass. No families on holiday. Hardly any boat tours full of enthusiastic singers and dancers. Everything's just gone quiet. It's very pleasant. We feel like retired people again – the only people out having lunch mid-week and staying on for an after lunch drink.

Me on the upper deck of the Point Yacht Club

The one excitement has been the arrival of a viking ship. Ja, a viking ship! It's a project (the Midgard Expedition) organised by Bjorn Heyerdahl (grandson of Thor Heyerdahl of Kon Tiki fame) to build and sail a viking ship as a means of researching “intelligent sustainable human habitation” - aka “The search for intelligent life on earth”. It's a beautiful, handcrafted boat with lovely wood carving, traditional lines and slightly incongruous (though necessary) electric bilge pump and modern life raft. Looking forward to seeing it sail.

A little different from all the other boats along the dock.

We'll be sorry to say goodbye to Durban, it's been great. We've been having final visits to our favourite haunts: beers at Robson's Real Beer (where we got the full collection of bottle labels along with their stories from one of the owners), a bicycle tour along the full length of the esplanade, a sushi train (sushi being one of our most missed items since leaving Australia) at Gateway Theatre of Shopping (enough shopping centre to leave us satisfied for quite some time), pub crawl at uMhlanga Rocks, daily runs on the esplanade followed by coffee at the surf club, a final couple of good surfs for Karl and pretty regular visits to both yacht clubs. 

Cycling the esplanade, just like at Mooloolaba.

We discovered that the harbour pilots get taken off by helicopter - plucked from the deck on a line. Very cool.

Karl emerges after a particularly good surf.

The surf club.

We'll miss the comings and goings of the big ships in the port, the bobbing and unnerving swerving of the walk-ons (marina docks/pontoons), the ridiculously long train bringing locally made bakkies (utes) to the transport ships, the chicken curry toasted sandwiches and the glasses of warm white wine accompanied by glasses of ice (how's that supposed to help?). We'll try to take the local lingo with us: the “morning morning”, “howzit?”, “good good”, “sharp sharp”, “lekker” and “ja”. Today's new word of the day is “babelas” - hungover. Not because we are, just because that's where the conversation went.

The resident duck family on the end of the dock. The ducklings have become all grown up since we've been here.

Durban's been a lovely bit of Brisbane/Gold Coast with an African twist (or South Africa with a Brisbane/Gold Coast flavour). A taste of the big smoke by the coast but with people as friendly as in a much smaller town. But now it's time to head off again around Cape Agulhas, the Cape of Good Hope and onwards.

Classic South Africa - a row of braai (braais? what's the plural?). BBQ worship to rival Australia and Argentina. There should be a competition. There probably is.