Ancient Mariner

By Rob Le Roux

Mike Cave and I were about to bring “Ancient Mariner” back from Port Owen to RCYC last weekend. The whole week we were looking up the weather pattern on Windguru and other sites. We decided that the best days were the Saturday 13th and Sunday 14th.
We arrived at Port Owen on the Friday afternoon and enjoyed a most hospitable evening with the members at the club. The club, most Fridays, puts on a decent meal or a fire. Drinks are also available at a reasonable price as well.

We woke on the Saturday to the sounds of fairly consistent winds from the North/North East moving to the west. Overnight the winds had picked up somewhat but had abated when we eventually decided to leave at about 7h30 bound for Dassen. Thank goodness we waited for sunrise.
Now one thing we had to learn from the St. Helena Bay area is that in summer, even with the winds howling a South Easter, the waters are fairly flat. But, and that’s a fairly big BUT, in winter, the shallow bay makes the exit from the Berg river near impossible. As we sailed out of the entrance, the waves were bashing us from all angles. There was white water breaking for as far out as the eye could see. It took us approximately 2 minutes to decide that we should return to the safety of the Port Owen marina, babalas and all. I took a few pictures of us at the time and then later took a picture of the seas. Ugly indeed, both of us and the sea of course :).  Marion Cole had to make a comment on us being chicken, but when she returned an hour or two later she said it was probably a very good decision as she had just been to the mouth and saw another yacht trying to exit. It looked like a cork bouncing in the ocean. We then headed home by car with our tails firmly wedged between our legs.
Tuesday, the 16th, we arrived at Port Owen again. Dropped the yacht onto a trailer and did about 55 kts up the R27 back to Cape Town with a favourable wind from the front.
She is now safely back on her marina.