Doldrums Off The East African Coast

We are still living inside the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.  Or on a Saturday Night in Toledo, Ohio, the song by John Denver. John Denver's version of being bored is more tongue in cheek that Coleridge's.  We sit and watch the sun rise, the moon rise, then the sunset and the setting of the moon. This as opposed to visiting the bakery and watching the buns rise or sitting in the park and watching the grass die, as John Denver would have it.

Coleridge had a much heavier tone to his description of boredom.


Perhaps we are in a different situation, but eventually boring nevertheless. It is easy to think this as you go through the roller coaster of emotions on this voyage.

The past few days saw us sailing for about twelve hours a day before the wind died and we had to motor. This pattern had been slowly changing, however.

To less wind, more quiet sea. The peak thus far was today, when we had a glassy smooth sea at sunset. However, when I came on watch at midnight things were different.

The moon was lazily setting into an oily smooth sea. There was no swell even. Normally one loses some feeling for the swell when lying down. Tonight is no exception. But even on deck I am able to walk around without fear of falling over.

In fact, the sea is flat calm that I was able to photograph the moon sinking into the sea using a hand-held compact camera. The camera even reported sufficient light to focus.


I was also able to get shots of the southern cross and the two pointers, but these were a bit shaky.

Flat calm sea indeed.

On the other hand we have a serious problem with this lack of wind. If I did nothing, we would run out of food in the middle of the ocean, just like the sailors of old. Or we may run out of fuel before the wind came back. Which will have our refrigerated food go bad with the same starvation staring us in the face.

But we are resourceful, can think and make decisions. Like going closer to the coast to make use of any breezes there may be due to the effect of the hot land. Hopefully our windless woes will soon be a thing of the past.

I am also making an experiment with the pineapple vinegar. We started the experiment today, so we shall see how it goes.

Today was also the first time we had the full main sail up. Up to now we played it safe with the fluctuations in the wind and sailed with one reef in the main to alleviate the deck work load required by the solitary watchkeeper.

The little wind there is is so steady that I decided to shake the reef and see what speed we can make using the full main. The wind was on our port quarter, so the main could actually be blanking the jib.

This was not the case and we had some very good sailing in flat water for about an hour. Then the wind died.

On preparing to pack away the sail we found a shackle pin in the sail bag. Quite disconcerting, as the pin was very thick, meaning that it was supposed to hold down something big and  strong. We found the culprit a few minutes later. Luckily, the shackle was still in place. It was the shackle at the clew of the main sail, holding the clew and the girdle round the boom together. The webbing and the outhaul line had held the shackle itself in place. Talk of some luck.

Another latent problem sorted.

Up to now we have only seen three man made things in the ocean. No, that is not correct. One of the crew saw two ships, the rest of us saw a drill rig. But the crew member in question saw the drill rig in full dress as they switched on all their lights as we approached. This of course happened in the middle of the night, so only the watchkeeper saw the spectacle. The rest of us just saw a bright light on the horizon.

Speaking of bright lights, we are now running with navigation lights again. But I got caught out the other night when I saw another bright light appearing on the horizon. I quickly switched onb the navigation lights, just  to realise fifteen minnutes later that it was indeed the planet Venus rising. Another sign of very calm weather.

We have started our fishing efforts again, but to no avail. Probably due to the calm conditions and our slow progress. The closest we came to catching fish were the whales visiting us late this afternoon. They visited again just before midnight, scaring the living daylights out of the watchkeeper as they blew next to the boat.

Interesting how the simple things in life become important when you are far away from the hustle and bustle of city life.


Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2014-07-06

The Doldrum Cruise Start

The full implication of the East African doldrums finally came to light today. In a roundabout way too.

But I am getting ahead of the story.

I made my usual phone call for weather info on the satellite phone today. In fact three calls. Of which two gave me sketchy information and one, inadvertently, gave me more useful information.

Us sailors need weather information to plan our passage and course for the next forecast period. On voyages close inshore we get the forecast on the VHF radio at set times, depending on where you are. But out in the ocean one is dependent on phoning a friend to help with this service. It makes life at sea a lot safer.

Today I had two sets of information in which the informants gave me some ideas of their own. The third informant was my wife. She gave me an update on the weather at home and the forecast for the rest of South Africa for the next few days.


Now, you would argue that the information is valid only for the region in question, which would be right. However, it is quite possible to derive a forecast for our whereabouts from the South African forecast.

This is possible because we are north-east of South Africa and close enough that cold fronts passing over the country will affect our weather over here. Cold fronts in this area travel from west to east and lose some of their impetus over the southern African continent.

So today I learned that a strong cold front passed over Cape Town two days ago, passing over the eastern part of the country by today and tomorrow. This means that the south Indian ocean high that sits near us will be pushed north to give us the doldrums. Then the same high pressure system will move south again as the front passes, giving us back our wind.

To conclude this very heavy essay on weather, I forecast a northerly to north-easterly wind of around twenty knots two or three days hence. In support of this, our wind started coming back today with a light air of around five knot out of the north-east and the barometer dropped by one hectopascal and stayed steady.

Ocean weather systems 101, I guess. Only time will tell whether I am right.

We made a few turns on our path the last few days in in our quest for optimal speed and progress. This had a positive reslut that we picked up a current of around one knot, helping us along, whereas before we had none. Thank heavens for small mercies.

In addition we are now on an ocean cruise. We re-budgeted our food and fuel and found that we could live quite long waiting for the wind to come without having to motor like mad to get to a fast food joint.

Today was wash day, tomorrow boat cleaning day. And so we shall keep ourselves out of mischief.

The pineapple vinegar is fermenting merrily in the bath and we are making attempts at fishing. My guess is that we won't catch anything at the speed we are going at present, though. Hopefully the situation will soon change for the better.

Today was also baking day. We haven't had fresh bread for a few days now after the last of the store-bought bread ran out. It was nice to have a slice of warm bread with real butter for a change. It appears that I have now come to an understanding with the oven and the two loaves came out nicely baked with a thick caramelised crust and a fluffy, elastic crumb. Not too bad for an off-the-cuff recipe.

We also have some reasonably fresh flour of French origin and type '00'. This is not readily obtainable where I live, so I had to make do with what I have. A whole new learning experience, using a different flour than the ones I am used to, in addition to a new brand of instant yeast. Life in the galley gets quite interesting as well!


We were able to relax our strict regime today and watched some movies. This may become part of the daily routine by the looks of it. Good entertainment and not too taxing on the mind.

A voyage with a difference, this oceanic cruise. Quite a positive experience.

My first and hopefully not the last.



Authored by Johan Zietsman

Last updated on 2014-07-06