We left Cape Town yesterday with three cruising options: Sail back the next day. Stay two nights in Dassen island. Go to Saldanha – about 30 more miles north – and sail back when the weather allows it.
Today the forecast suggests that we could sail/motor back to Cape Town on Tuesday (going downwind with 10-15 kn).
Considering how well Eidos did yesterday we decide to keep going further to visit the Saldanha yacht club for a cold beer.
There is no wind and we have to motor all the way. The swell is much better today. less than 2mt, longer period, more from the back. Probably I am also more used to the way the boat moves.
We leave Dassen island at 11:15 and while the island protects us from the swell we calibrate the autopilot that finally works perfectly.
It is definitely much more comfortable than yesterday and we enjoy the space of the cockpit and the saloon.
As we are forced to motor we do some experiments with a single engine and two engines at different RPM. We try to understand what will be the best way to manage our diesel and speed in long passages.
Eidos has two Yanmar 4JH3-DTE engines (125HP), very similar to the Yanmar 4JH3-HTE (100HP) we had on the Amel. The comparison of rpm/speed/consumption is unavoidable.
We arrive in front of the Saldanha Yacht Club around 3pm but we do not find a satisfactory place to anchor. We stop near a small boat yard called Yachtport about a mile away.
We could go by dinghy to the yacht club for our deserved beer after 60 miles from Cape Town, but we really don’t know if the dinghy works. The visit to the Yacht club is postponed to the next morning for breakfast so at least we have more time to manage any issue.
Instead we visit the boatyard, it is very nice, extremely clean and looks well organised. We chat with a couple of cruisers that were refitting a large monohull in aluminium and go for a walk.
We close the day with a cold beer at sunset in our cockpit.