Stilbaai to Gouritsmond

Sunrise today was on my right hand side, under a clear sky for the first time in a while, and it put me in a good space for the rest of the day — the wind had finally given me a break after leaving Stilbaai.

Plan A was to get out at the Yzervarkpunt lighthouse, in a tiny rocky bay with a narrow gap in the rocks — not somewhere you want any swell running. Today’s was just under 2m, manageable. I cut across the bay and ended up alongside a private 22-house resort (yes, I counted them). It was here I watched a whale slamming its flukes on the surface, over and over, a hell of a racket and a great distraction.

At the lighthouse I shelved Plan A for Plan Bravo: the weather system over the shore had stalled, so Gouritsmond became the new goal. I stayed just 100m off the coast for the rest of the way, which makes the progress easier to measure — a house, a rocky outcrop — compared to cutting across a bay where the point on the horizon never seems to get any closer. First contact with Warren only came at the outskirts of town, then a straightforward run in, guided by what the locals must have taken for a madman waving his arms on the beach.