The Cosmos Adventure - News

Report From Joe Dorr -- Received August 20, 2002

Cosmos

We are in Durban, South Africa.  I haven't been able to file reports since Rodrigues because both of my on-board computers stopped working on the same day.  George is nice to let me borrow his computer to write this report tonight so that it can be sent before we fly home.

Rodrigues to Mauritius

The plan was for four boats to leave Rodrigues on July 19th, but the weather forecast included waves up to six meters.  Consequently, the Coast Guard stopped by the harbor and recommended that all of us delay our departure until the next day.  Being prudent sailors, we delayed our departure, but one of the four boats left in spite of the forecast.  Frank and Peter on UP-CHUCK left and did not see any bad weather or waves.  Funny things happen on small remote islands where tourist spending is treasured, and it certainly crossed my mind that the bad forecast that kept us on the island for one more spending day might be backed by some of the same motivation as the "always lovely" weekend weather forecast for Ocean City weather during the summer.

The following day, we left along with James on Mango and Jack on Mitan even though the forecast had changed very little.  We spoke to Frank and Peter on the SSB radio and they reported making some good speed in favorable winds and had seen no dangerous weather or waves. 

We were the last to leave the harbor, and as were going through the wide pass in the reef, I noticed that Jack was completely nude on his stern.  I thought he picked a funny time to take a bath, but then realized that he had caught a line in his propeller.  Although he was not close to the reef, the 20-knot wind was moving him in its direction.  It appeared that he had about ten minutes to get clear.  We made circles in the area until he had safely freed the line and got out of the channel.  We learned later that he was also having trouble with his transmission and was delayed in Mauritius to get the problem fixed.

We saw one large whale on this leg, and although it surfaced a couple of times about 100 yards from the boat, it did not present itself closely enough for pictures as the earlier whales had done.  Later on this passage, a blue marlin maintained a position 10 to 20 feet behind the boat.  His fins were amazingly bright, glistening blue; he was quite beautiful and almost unreal in shape and color.

For the last twelve hours out of Mauritius, we heard the Coast Guard calling the ship Chi Man many times but we never heard an answer.  When we arrived in the harbor, Chi Man was tied up alongside the bulkhead and we were told by Customs and the police that the ship had arrived a couple of hours before us.  They said that the captain, engineer and two crewmen were killed and overboard.  We saw the authorities taking the ship's company away.  I asked the policeman if they knew what had happened and he said no one on board spoke anything but Chinese and they did not have an interpreter yet.  But he said he that once they had an interpreter they expected no problem getting to the bottom of what happened.

James, on Mango, was in the port when we arrived.  He seriously hurt his ankle and had to stay in his cabin for several days, so we took food and drink to him for as long as we were there.  I offered to get crutches for him, but he is a tough, single-hander (person who sails alone) and all he would accept was a stick to use as a cane that happened to be on Cosmos.  Sailors are tough guys.  After we left Mauritius, we kept in touch with him on the SSB radio and learned that he stayed in Mauritius for over a week to let his ankle heal and then made it safely to Reunion.

The country of Mauritius is comprised of two islands:  Mauritius and Rodrigues.  Rodrigues is a lovely island with lovely people with lovely attitudes.  The majority of the population are descendants of black slaves brought to work sugar plantations on Mauritius who, when freed, were also helped to move to the much smaller island of Rodrigues.  Mauritius is a much larger island with a population of about 800,000 unfriendly people and little to commend the island.  Mauritius gets more tourists because it has many resorts, but Rodrigues would certainly be my first choice for a vacation.  Of all of the places we have visited so far, the island of Mauritius was my least favorite.  The only thing that I saw that was commendable was a wonderful farmers market.

Mauritius to Reunion

The passage from Mauritius to Reunion was a very short 130 miles.  We traveled without the company of the other boats with which we had formed an alliance, and had an uneventful overnight trip.  We could see the lights of the French territory of Reunion reflecting off the clouds from 66 nautical miles out.  The island has a large industrial area devoted to sugar refining.

For the first day and a half, I thought Reunion had less to offer than Mauritius.  Then we rented cars and drove up into the clouds to see the dormant volcanoes.  What a sight those were.  The landscape was almost mystic.  We stood on a ledge and looked several hundred yards to the bottom of the first small volcano.  Later we saw the "mountain sea" of black sand that must have covered 50 square miles.  We were above the clouds in a place were there is no pollution.  The light of the sun, and the darkness of shadows made the terrain look like a lunar landscape with blue skies.  As the day progressed, clouds rolled in off the ocean and filled the pass between the mountain we stood on and the next mountain over.  Once again, the lack of air pollution makes the viewing wonderful. 

After touring the volcano, we went on another drive to a remote mountain village.  The road was cut into the side of sheer cliffs.  At some points, you could look out the car window, over the side of the road protected by no guard rail or wall and straight down 1,000 feet.  At several places, the concrete road and its supports had been attached to the side of the mountain and hung out from the cliff face.  One switch back was so sharp, the road actually made a complete circle and crossed back over itself at a higher level.  The road must have cost a fortune to build.  We drove for over an hour to see a very small town.  We had read in one of the tour books that the towns in these remote mountains were populated by people who ran away from slavery over 160 years ago and it was only recently that they rejoined the island government.  I suppose the very expensive road was one of the costs of pulling the population back together.

Having seen the volcanoes, we were ready and happy to leave Reunion.

Reunion to Durban, South Africa.

The passage to Durban was marked by two highlights.  One occurred though it was not expected, while the other was expected but never occurred.  We usually go days at sea, and sometimes longer than a week without seeing another ship.  We did not expect this passage to be any different.  We were surprised, then, to see at least one ship every day and on one three-hour night watch I saw three ships.  One came within three hundred yards (close in oceanic terms) of Cosmos.  As it passed, I was watchful but not particularly concerned because the navigation lights consistently indicated that we would pass port to port, and we did. 

Usually when we try to call the large ships on the radio, they do not answer.  I assume they don't want to be bothered with people who only speak English.  But on this passage one ship answered and reported that he was carrying rice from Bangkok to Angola.  Another ship actually called us to ask if we wanted the weather forecast.  He was going to South Africa with an empty ship to pick up a load to take to Israel.

The second highlight was the weather.  Every journal, every cruising guide, and even the charts indicate that it is rare to make this 15-day passage without meeting gale force (40+ mph) winds.  That is not so bad, since we have weathered winds up to 57 mph on earlier passages.  But the writers also warn that when the winds come from the southwest (as they often do in weather fronts moving up the African coast) against the Agulhas Current (also called the Mozambique Current) that travels southwest, the waves can quickly grow to 60 feet.  There is a particular place called the 100 Fathom Line which runs close to the coast of South Africa that can change from favorable to treacherous in 30 minutes.  The way to avoid these conditions is to monitor the weather forecast and stay away from the 100 Fathom Line when a gale might come.  The line runs directly away from Durban (our destination) for a couple of hundred miles in our direction, so we planned a course that crossed the line perpendicularly and then planned to hug the coast if necessary to avoid the line.  The recommendation is to stay within a mile or less of the coast, even in gales, to keep off the 100 Fathom Line if storms are in the forecast.

As we crossed the Indian Ocean, I had collected over twelve frequencies from cruisers to monitor the area weather on the radio.  When I tried them, only one provided any information that was a little useful.  We did get one report on the radio that 28 containers had fallen from a ship, but we also learned that they were lost about 500 miles north of our intended location, so even if the Agulhas Current carried them south, it was unlikely that they would be in front of us before we got to Durban.

I decided to call my brother, Tom, on the Iridium every day for a detailed forecast. He gave us the six-day weather forecast every morning, which he found on the Internet (thank you, Tom).  The first few weather forecasts were favorable, but did not extend the full time of our 12 to 15-day passage.  About the sixth day of our passage, Tom reported that gales were in the forecast for about the time we would arrive on the SA coast.  Just what we did not want to hear.

Forecasts can change and because we were still five days from the coast, we continued sailing at our normal rate.  About three days from the coast, the forecast changed because the cold front and bad weather were stuck farther south than our passage would take us.  Thank goodness.  We put on all sails and accelerated speed to get to Durban before the gales.

The plan worked -- so well, in fact, that we had to slow down during the last day.  The channel into Durban is lined by two large, lone stone jetties.  The current in the channel reaches 3.5 knots on a falling tide and 2.5 knots on a rising tide.  Almost no matter what we did, we would be arriving at night.  The last thing I wanted was to face 15-foot seas in a channel we had never before navigated.  So we timed our arrival for slack tide when the current would be exactly zero mph.  We entered the channel at 1:17 AM, exactly when the Indian Ocean Tides publication indicate we would find slack tide.  Our entry was lovely.

Before we found the channel, we were entertained by the lights from shore and from 15 to 20 large ships anchored outside the harbor.  Durban is the largest city that we have seen since we left Fort Lauderdale. From the ocean it looks like Miami; the old part of the city located on the ocean even has blocks of art deco architecture, like Miami.  

Now we are in Durban, having made it all the way across the Indian Ocean without seeing a wave larger than 15 feet. According to the reports that I have read, this is amazing,  One source even states that very few cruisers make the last 1,500 miles without seeing at least two serious storms.  We were lucky.

But Durban is a troubled city.  Everyone warns us to be careful where we go, and not to go out at night, not to wear gold, not to carry a camera or cell phone, always travel in company, and only take as much money as we must.  The second day in town, I was standing in a nautical antique store on a busy and upscale street when I heard a hard thump against the window.  I looked up to see an elderly man falling to the ground as a younger man ran away.  The shopkeeper and I went out to help the man up.  The keeper assisted him into the shop and sat him down.  The man reported that someone had reached into his pocket and when he spun around, the man pushed him away and into the window.  Nothing was taken and the man was not seriously hurt.  I feel certain the victim was marked for his age and physical condition, but it is certainly a vivid indication of what can happen.

Yesterday, George and I went with a tour guide to a game preserve.  We hoped to see the big five.  We did see giraffes, rhinoceros, baboons, monkeys, warthogs, wildebeests, kudus, buffalo, nyala, zebras and impalas.  Most of these were within 50 yards of our van. We wanted to spot an elephant and our guide continued the search for an extra hour in an attempt to accommodate us, but we were unsuccessful.

Now the boat is about ready for its hiatus.  We took the sails down the first day in the harbor.  The crew polished all the above-deck bright work, polished the hulls, scrubbed the decks and cleaned the interior.  Then it started raining.  The rain has continued off and on for three days now.  This must be the front that we expected to meet out in the ocean, but it is much tamer, having spent itself during its slow trip up the African coast. 

We have two more days remaining before we fly home.  We have plenty to do, but I will be very happy to get home to Elke and the family.  I really hope to be there before Daphne has our first grandchild.

Joe Dorr

Captain of the Cosmos