Languishing in Luderitz

The wind never stops. As I sit down to write I check the wind speed. It’s blowing up to thirty-six knots. There are white caps in Luderitz harbour and the sound of the gale in the rigging provides only clichés for description. It moans and howls. It even screams. I’d intended to go ashore for a beer later. Now I’m not sure I want to take the inflatable in this wind. So put my laptop on the cockpit seat and go below to put some cans of beer in the fridge just in case.

I suppose this is the perfect opportunity to write. A kind of self-imposed isolation dictated to by the need to stay safe. A kind of floating Covid-like quarantine. Which brings me to why I’m sitting alone on a yacht on a mooring ball in Luderitz Bay.

We weren’t planning to stop at Luderitz. The four of us were sailing to Saint Helena. Then we were going to Brazil. But the setting on the water-maker was wrong and instead of topping up our tanks we emptied seven hundred and fifty litres of fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean. The water maker made us a bit so we weren’t in any immediate danger of running out completely. And the yacht has emergency jerry cans of water. But then the water-maker kept cutting out and it was too risky to assume we’d make enough to last us another ten days at sea. So we came here to fill up.

The gusts are hitting forty-four knots now. The prospect of beer and company today seems remote.

The wind was like this when we were heading into Luderitz. On watch in the early hours I had 48 knot gusts. It’s fine. The boat can handle it. But entering a strange port at night is tricky. Even dangerous. Entering a strange port at night in a near storm is reckless.

We hove-to until just before first light and timed the final twelve miles into port so that we’d arrive with the sun.

Now we’re stuck in Luderitz. We sailed out yesterday for Saint Helena. Half an hour later we were pounding back into the wind and the choppy sea. A message on the satellite communications system told us that Saint Helena was closed. And Brazil is closed too. Namibia is closing on Friday.

Our voyage has been infected by Covid19. Our progress ends here.