It was the evening of 16th September 2017. Spring in the Southern Hemisphere just started, and the first major storm struck Durban. The highest gust recorded on our boat during the storm was above 90 knots. A few of the walkways in the marina broke and some of the pontoon cement slabs also cracked. The children and we were all on board and witnessed the marina walk-ons splitting up in front of our eyes. To secure the boats, we had to take out all our spare ropes to fasten the pontoons.
When the storm subsided, I thought, the wind would not be stronger than 90 knots. This was the highest wind we had experienced since we bought the boat. Unexpectedly, in less than a month, another storm, an even stronger one, ushered destruction into Durban, without any warning. Not only the Durban marina, but the whole city was impacted by the disaster.
I remember that day, 10th October; we had entered the last two months countdown before our circumnavigation. I had resigned from my job and was on the boat preparing for our departure; Pierre still needed to work until the end of the year and the children had been sent to the farm to stay with their grandparents.
The sun was shining as usual that morning when Pierre left the boat for his office. In the next hour, the sky from where the boat's stern pointing to the southwest was suddenly mudded with darkish grey clouds. , being pushed towards us like a moving dark ominous greywall. In no time at all, the visibility was down to ten meters. The wind screamed like a harsh whistle in the air, and countless halyards of sailboats were whipping against the masts. Large raindrops were blown down from the sky; I felt like I was being hit by soybeans. Soon the fierce wind piled waves upon waves and our sturdy boat was wobbling from left to right.
Our newly purchased dinghy was tied onto the pontoon at the stern, with only one line on the nose. The waves made it jump up and down between Ithaca and the pontoon. It could be pressed in the water and submerged in no time. Unwillingly, I had to jump out of the boat to tie another line to the dinghy. The wind and the rain were getting more and more agitated, smashing my face and blinding my vision; the raindrops hammered on my back through the thin raincoat causing stinging pain. The visibility was down to arm's length, I could see nothing of the rope; I groped for the rope end and the cleat and quickly tied a bowline with closed eyes.
After securing the dinghy, Ithaca was jumping like a wild horse on the loose; I had to use my hands and feet to climb back on board. By looking around the boat, in the haze, I found that the catamaran on the left side of our berth was gradually drifting away from us. Oh no! It must be the pontoon that cracked last month which broke again. A few minutes later, Ithaca, along with her neighbour on the right side, a 35-ton-steel sailboat, were pushed away by the wind. The tailwind on the left suddenly changed to abeam on our side. The raging wind became nasty and breached into tightened foresails of our heavy neighbour and quickly tore out some holes; the sails were stretched larger and larger. The broken sails, flying like angry demons riding on a violent untamed lion, cried and roared in my ears. Finally, the storm, using our neighbour's boat and her ripped sails, started an attack on Ithaca. With every single gust, it pushed and tilted two overlapping boats to the right side; on pulling back, our heavy neighbour would put her weight on Ithaca's side. I rushed onto the deck again and fought with the slightest chance to save the boat from the damage. How was it possible!? In the place where the two boats were squeezed together, there were no fenders at all, and it was too late. The stainless-steel guardrails, which we had just polished, could not bear the strain; soon they were bent and deformed. The wooden gunnels below at the edge of the deck cracked and were opening up. The gunnels are located in the area where the deck and the hull connects. I dared not imagine that If Ithaca's cement hull could not stand the force, she would crack and sink instantly. However, the rain and the wind did not show any sign of giving up.
Around me, the marina was in a state of utter chaos. I could see a few boats half sunk already. The landscape that I used to know had disappeared. In the furious wind and rain, every sailboat, like a madwoman, crying and brandishing with the weapons of masts and anchors, pounded into each other. How dreadful! The world, which I was in, started to spin! I was horrified!
With a scream, I sat on the deck and cried loudly. My voice and tears were buried in the rainstorm immediately. No one could hear it and no one could see it.
I did not know how long I cried, finally, I calmed down and went back to the cabin to find the emergency grab bag. I pulled out the things I packed not long ago and put in other important stuff which included passports, identity documents, the ship 's documents, wallet, phones and notebooks. If Ithaca had a leak and sank, I would need to get myself ready for an escape. Looking around to see what more I could load into the grab bag, my heart ached with sorrows. I didn't want to leave behind any of the items which were carefully chosen. This was not an escape from vast seas; no freshwater or dry food was necessary. I thought long and hard -- I still did not know what else could be added in -- anyway, the space in the grab bag was too limited. If I must say goodbye to our dreams in this way, what was the point of saving the items on board?
At this time, I remembered that I had not turned on the Garmin, our chart plotter, to see the wind speed. What?! 170 knots! I could not believe my eyes. Was this possible? This wind speed would match the Category 5 hurricane Irma that occurred in the Caribbean a month before the storm.
I took a photo of our chart plotter screen. This photo was later widely circulated in the marina because I was the only one who stayed on board and recorded the fierceness of the storm in that very moment.
After half an hour, the storm weakened slightly, blowing at a sustained wind speed of 40-50 knots, but the rain was continuously pouring down. Suddenly, I heard a shout outside and it was from Pierre. He was appearing in front of me, soaking wet with empty hands and bare feet.
It turned out that soon after arriving at his office, he heard about the problems in the marina. The normal 20-minutes-distance took him more than an hour to drive back in the flooded city. While he was heading back, he called me a few times, but I was probably crying on the deck. To him, he thought that Ithaca and I both were in trouble, that we might have sunk and drowned. He was anxious and extremely worried. On his arrival at the marina, the pontoons to the sailboats had been broken and many sections sank underwater. He left his laptop and cell phone at the marina office, and then plunged into the water without a second thought, and eventually, he found Ithaca and back home.
Speechlessly, we embraced for being reunited. Each of us seemed to have experienced a life and death situation. Luckily, the boat was still here, our home was still here, and we were alive.
When a person is facing a disaster with you, especially a loved one, the disaster does not seem so terrible anymore. Pierre and I were shivering from the wet and the fear in our minds. After changing into dry and warm clothes, we brought out a bottle of coffee liqueur to warm up. We decided to stay on watch in the cockpit and waited for the storm to pass. Pierre started the boat engine on standby; if the situation deteriorated, we would do our best to protect the boat, our home, and our dreams.
Until it was dark, the storm that had engulfed almost the whole day finally calmed down. We and the boat were safe. What a relief! That was the closest encounter I had felt to a sea escape.
The next day, the overall rescue in the aftermath started in the marina. Those sailboats that were crushed together had to be pulled apart one by one. Our berth was gone, and we had to move and anchor outside the marina in the bay. This would be our first time to anchor Ithaca since we bought her.
The bay in Durban harbour hides many shifting shallow beaches. It was high tide when we went to anchor. In the first second, we dropped out the anchor chain, and in the next second, before we could reverse the boat and set the anchor, the boat was blown by the wind and ran aground. The knowledge learnt in school did not apply in the least here; the boat could not move, no matter what. We were in a panic. Fortunately, a rescue boat was nearby. We searched and found our never used tow rope, and Ithaca was safely pulled out of troubled water.
Afterwards, we carefully anchored Ithaca in the reliable waters on the other side of the bay, with a scope ratio of three to one. Everything seemed safe. Two days later, a 40-knot wind struck Durban, and Ithaca began to drift with the anchor. We quickly dropped out some more chain to a ratio of five to one. It didn't work, the boat was drifting towards the shallow water again. Without knowing the reason, we couldn't decide whether to lift the anchor or drop more chain. The stern collided right into a two-meter special marker buoy in the bay.
Our bad luck! We started the engine and lifted the anchor. A large plastic bag, which was full of sediment, hooked on our anchor. This must be the main "culprit" of our boat drifting; the anchor was never secured to the bottom. There were so many plastic bags lying at the bottom in the bay. We tried to anchor a few more times, all failed. We had to give up the anchoring.
After that, our friend David, whose boat was on a chain mooring, suggested that we could tie our boat with his boat. His boat was fastened on a heavy mooring block which survived from the storm a few days ago.
This time, we practised tying the boat side by side. Also, we learned to set a stern anchor to secure the boat. A few days later, there was a Slovenian foreign boat coming in. Durban marina was still in recovery and could not accept any foreign vessels yet. With David's permission, the foreign sailboat also tied up with us, the three boats tied together in parallel.
Just when we thought we were safe enough, there was another gale force of 40 knots of wind forecast in Durban. It happened during the weekend; we knew it and prepared ourselves before the windy day. Pierre and David took advantage of low tide and buried two more anchors in the shallow beach in the left front of our boats. We all thought the wind would surely do nothing to us. Surprisingly, the wind blew in from the right front -- that direction was the embankment, where rocks were piled up to stop the waves in the harbour. It was our weak point because anchoring in rocks is not possible. The main holding cable to David's boat snapped and failed to withstand the strong gust of 55 knots. The two spare anchors could not bear the wind and the three boats slowly drifted backwards. When we realized our unexpected move, the three boats had been blown almost to the middle of the marina entrance. If the boats had continued drifting, the result would be either hitting the other boats or running aground on a sandbank. What an awful predicament!
To use a dinghy to drop an anchor in wind is easier said than done. It is more difficult to do if your anchor comes with heavy chains. The weight of the anchor, the chains, the strength of the wind, and the waves, any of the above was a challenge for you and your dinghy. The dinghy with full power was more like an uncontrolled fish ramming left and right on the sea. David and the captain on the foreign sailboat were not onboard, Pierre and I had to call for help. Luckily, two fishing friends in the marina saw our situation and came to help with their dinghies. In the end, we buried the anchor in the rock on the embankment. Then we fought for four hours against the wind to pull the boat bit by bit to her safe zone.
The lessons we learnt during the storm have been used many times to save Ithaca in the voyage through South American waters. The method of burying an anchor in the rock on shore was so efficient and saved a stranded Switzerland sailboat a year later.
Looking back today, I have to say that we are incredibly grateful for the hardships and trials given by God that year. Without these ordeals to strengthen our wills, Ithaca and her family would not be where we are now.