By the time I returned to the dock, rumor had already circulated that I had acquired my Cape Rounding piercing. Sailors were a-buzz with stories of the times the sea challenged their existence, everyone theorizing which tattoo or other marking would represent survival of their fate. A happy hour had gathered aboard Steel Sapphire.
As I board, the team requested I display Black Bettie’s handiwork. I lift my hair away from my now sore ears. Musings of approval all around.
"I need the HOLD FAST tattoo," one sailor declared, sipping his grog. “One day while crossing the South Pacific...” He launched into the story of the day his large, colorful, downwind sail (the spinnaker) caught wind as he was trying to take it down. It lofted skyward and flung him overboard. Single handing at the time, he was certainly doomed if he let go. “I hung on tight, dragging through the water.” Then as the sail filled with wind again and took to the skyward a second time, it yanked him closer to the boat and he grabbed the lifeline on the side deck on his way up. He hauled himself aboard, wet, but otherwise alive.
I swallowed hard thinking of it. I am the crew member responsible for launching and dousing our spinnaker sail, and I know first-hand the forces involved. We have a sock for our sail that connects to the deck to prevent exactly this scenario, but as Captain Ron says...”Shit happens."
My own spinnaker and I, on a calm sailing day.
Yes, Michael deserves the HOLD FAST tattoo.
We whiled away the rest of the evening aboard Steel Sapphire enjoying the company of sailors who share our adventures, that sweet commonality of experience building immediate bridges across any difference - age, nationality, race, education, religion, politics, marital status, people with children, people without children...at sailors’ sundowners, these things rarely matter.
The next day, though, Andrew put his foot down.
"We've been in Cape Town six days and we haven't shopped for a single store of grog! We are running out of time!" Jen was finally feeling well enough to agree, and so we squeezed into our little Grog-Wagon and sputtered off toward Stellenbosch, a famed wine region just forty-minutes’ drive from our marina.
The scenery was stunning. Grapevines stretch out in rows along the hillsides, sunning themselves in the South African summer sun. Sheer, steep mountainsides reach up to the sky on surrounding edges of the valley. Vineyard after vineyard whizzed past our car windows until we near the first winery we had slated for our day: Glen Carlou. This winery was suggested to us by Nils and Margret, and it also looked to have a nice lunch menu.
“Do you think they are open?" Pete asked as we creeped into an empty parking lot. Andrew wasn't going to wait to find out. Wheels still rolling to a stop, Andrew bounded out and darted to the entrance. Waving his arm, he held the door wide open. “It’s open!"
A woman greeted us and we were seated at a large square table surrounded by comfy couches and adorned by a single live bonsai tree, lovingly trimmed and managed. “Would you like a tasting?" she asked. Andrew's head bobbled on his neck.
It's always difficult for a sailor to know whether his senses have been swindled by the length of time since he tasted good grog, or a jolly mood, or good company. But, at Glen Carlou, pour after pour Andrew exclaimed: “Oh, I like this one, don't you?" It was our first winery of the day, so I do think he retained his faculties. Nonetheless, with each wine he scratched a little pencil mark on the order sheet under the box for “one case”.
Pete looked over his shoulder. Andrew looked back over Pete's shoulder, like two kids cheating on their spelling test. “Aren't you going to get anything?" Andrew asked.
“It's only our first stop!" Pete said.
Andrew blinked at him. “Yeah, so?"
"Well, what if I like the next place better?” Pete asked.
Andrew blinked at him again. “You buy more wine there....I thought you said you are an experienced wine taster?!”
Pete looks askance at Andrew. I could see Pete doing the mental math around how this might fit in the car.
“Don't worry, you have your half of the car, I will have mine." Andrew says, promising he will not put wine anywhere that Jen is required to sit. Then, Andrew looked at me. Behind his eyes, I could see a play-reel of himself engaged in the "Squish and Stuff" packing strategy, arranging wine crates around my body. Soon, all Andrew could see of me in his mind’s eye were my hands peeking around, acting as seatbelt for his Pinotage case. Satisfied, he declares "There will be plenty of space!”
And, so it was.
This, became a repeat performance. Every time we'd go out wine hunting, Pete and Jen would buy a bottle or two, while Andrew would hail the wine room stock to bring the dolly around for our take.
“Where are you putting all that?" Pete would ask, wondering how little Sonrisa might carry all this wine across the Atlantic Ocean without being swamped.
“It’s a boat!" Andrew replies, as if that explains everything. “What are you going to drink after you leave Cape Town?” Andrew frets as he ponders the possibility that Pete and Jen’s passage forward may run dry.
"We will be in the UK by May." Pete says, again, Andrew just blinks.
“You sail a 50-foot boat!” Andrew responds, thinking with pain of all the wine-free cubby holes Steel Sapphire must have available.
Regardless of the respective differences in ship supply standard, we enjoyed the process of the hunt.
Villiera, with its strange sun fermented fortified dessert wine…
L’Avenier, with its beautiful grounds.
Landskroon
Another winery with wine we weren’t so keen on, but a beautiful tasting location nestled beneath a grove of oak trees.
Many of the wineries were more than one hundred years old, with operations inside old Dutch style architecture - an ambiance to experience regardless of whether you drink wine.
Before we knew it, our first week in Cape Town had expired and it was time to ring in the New Year. Oddgodfrey tradition requires that we start festivities with “Make it to Midnight” Irish Coffee, crack a crustacean, and lemon meringue pie. Whatever happens after that is ice in my New Year's Eve cocktail. Our dock mates Kevin and Jeanine from S/V Fluid Motion were game to share dinner, and so they arrived with hungry appetites, a bottle of champagne and Kevin's special scotch.
Later that evening, the whole sailor crowd gathered for a dock party, with each of us contributing something to the party snacks and drinks. With Andrew trying to clear out the remaining several cases of nasty wine he picked up for a steal when we first arrived in the Seychelles (a supply that lasted us more than a year), he offered to make Sangria for the whole team. After Andrew made an impassioned plea for sailors to share whatever empty jugs they could spare, Sonrisa's galley was filled with Tupperware pitchers lined up in rows and filled with fruit soaking in brandy.
By that evening, the flavors had melded perfectly, and word got out that Andrew knew how to make a tasty Sangria. This added to our New Year's Eve cheer, and we were shocked to find that every sailor had blown past "sailor's midnight” at 9 p.m. to clap and hoot as real midnight arrived.
While Cape Town usually would have hosted a big party with fireworks, that was not to be for us this year. Covid required that all big gatherings be cancelled. Instead, the V&A Waterfront launched a big light beam into the sky. Not as festive as fireworks, but it was going to have to do. And it did! We counted down, popped bottles of champagne, and kissed our sweethearts.
"Blechhhh!" I said to Andrew, making a face at my flute of bubbles after the excitement of 12:01 wore off. “I think this bottle has gone bad."
“Yeah, it tastes funny to me, too." Andrew reported. Mentally noting that he should ditch all the champagne he carried from the Seychelles for replacement, too.
"Should I dump it?" I asked.
I began to tip my flute of bubbly-gone-sour into the sea (for Neptune!) when Pete (unsupervised again due to the return of his wife’s stomach bug) swooped in and snatched it from my hovering hand. "Wasting champs!? Not on my watch!" He tipped the bottle back, then wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. “It's fine! You're crazy!”
At this point, Stuart from Time Bandit (the one in-the-same Stuart who had been tee-totaling for the last year “for the sake of health,” but more likely to keep a YouTube ready physique for his new motorcycle touring channel) raised his arms in the air and declared: "After Party on Time Bandit!” in a Sangria-Soaked Scottish brogue. To which his wife Anne, standing just behind him, slumped just a little with dismay.
Pete scurried off in the direction of Time Bandit, practically arm-in-arm with Stuart, both fellow Scots. "Hold Fast Michael” scampered along behind with his wife reluctantly in tow, while Andrew and I followed behind considering Time Bandit was located in the slip across from Sonrisa.
“Stuart!" I said, “What's gotten into you?”
He shrugged and said "I’ve parked me wagon tonight, eh!" placing a bottle of bilge wine on offer in the center of the table. Anne brewed herself a cup of tea and offered us the same while bringing out a pack of cookies.
Hold Fast Michael's wife leaned over to me and said “you have to help me get Michael out of here!" I raised my eyebrows with some level of doubt. Pete and Stuart were just getting started and Michael seemed game for anything. I patted her arm, and just then, my own captain stood up and exited without saying a word - as he tends to do when he is sleepy and has had enough grog.
“Oh, no," I whisper-hiss, "Andrew, get back here!" But, he carried on down the dock finger and disappeared into Sonrisa.
Without my own captain to cajole, I was in a weakened strategic position to help any other first mate cajole her own! Pete was again left unsupervised as Jen's stomach bug had returned, so he was in it for the long haul. I could see no near end to the festivities, and I was getting sleepy, too. Eventually, I determined the best thing I could do - the only thing I could do, really - was to stand, stretch and yawn, saying “what a party! Goodnight all, Happy 2022!"
I beckoned to my fellow first-mate indicating she should follow, but she did not and I left her there to fend for herself.
I am dead to her now.
New Year’s Day dawned with evidence of a New Year’s Eve to remember strewn across B Dock. Anne had Stuart up and out of bed early to complete an extra workout to counterbalance the excess consumption of grog. I think Hold Fast Michael was out purchasing apology flowers for his first-mate, and Pete was shuffling about regaling us with war stories from the moment he failed to properly distinguish the difference between the head and Steel Sapphire’s bathtub. Andrew, being the youngest captain in this particular fleet had recovered himself with Ibuprofen, Vitamin B, and the sleep of a sailor with his ship safely coddled by the shore.
A New Year properly rang, we launched our adventures into 2022.