The Ludic Behaviour Of Sage and Her Crew

                                                                    Protea

The ludic behaviour of Sage and her crew is coming to and end for a period of time. We have wandered through the Indian Ocean for the last year having visited some amazing places, met wonderful people and eating lots of tropical delights. No matter how wonderful it all looks and sounds we are quite tired.

We need a break from the constant moving, the worries of maintaining a boat in good nick in remote locations and if truth be told the southern Indian Ocean has thrown us for a loop with the constant weather concerns related to making safe passages along a coastline with few natural harbours. The old adage of it being safer far out to sea could not be more applicable to the South African coastline. I would much rather be 500 miles out at sea than to have the constant worry of how far it is to the next safe port.

So, we are setting the anchor down for a while to spend some time on bolstering Sage’s seaworthiness and taking a break from thinking where the next anchorage will be. We are looking forward to taking in more land based adventures be it walking through the fynbos of Table Mountain or perhaps a trip to the theatre or enjoying the Cape Town jazz festival.

We celebrated our arrival in the Atlantic Ocean with Lop To and Strider along with several bottles of champagne. We are all looking forward to one of the most classic sailing passages i.e. The South Atlantic passage from Cape Town to St. Helena, Ascencion and beyond. It’s a hurricane free zone and reading the blogs of the numerous 2016 Indian Ocean crossing alumni it looks pretty nice. However, our crossing is not going to take place for a while.

We have new sails to purchase. One has been waiting here in Simon’s Town since December, another has been ordered and is due to arrive late next week and another, the genoa, is to be measured up sometime soon. There is to be a new dodger and a new dinghy. All this takes time and so we are doing lots of small jobs between now and departure such as repairing the windlass, painting out the galley and cockpit, repairing the broken electronic steering, getting replacement parts for the wind-driven self steering and replacing all sorts of lines.

    The electronic self steering which broke at the same time as the wind-driven self                                                                              steering

 There was only one way to fix this offshore – duct tape. What a marvelous invention.

     One more thing to fix – we lost the boom vang and here we are in Simon’s Town                                                     taking it up to the shop for repair

We hope that by the time we leave Sage will feel like a new ship that’s ready to put on a few miles and we will have had a relaxing break and an improved attitude to putting many miles under the keel as we make our way north through the South Atlantic. We have many options as to places to go be it Brazil, the Caribbean, the Azores, Cape Horn or…Our imaginations run wild with possibilities and already we are thinking of exotic and far away places to anchor and explore.

                                                                Prolific Proteas

Stay tuned for a few land travel stories and then a foray into the South Atlantic.

                                         Our hometown for a while – Simons Town