South Africa saved the toughest for last. The coastal passage up to Durban was the hardest time I have spent in a boat, bar none.

First things first. We made it into Durban at about 11pm on Wednesday in third place. We were hugely relieved to just make it to port, but to bag another podium place after bringing up the rearguard for so long was pure joy.

I have special reasons for enjoying my visit here. I learned to sail in Durban, and over the years I have managed to keep in touch with Colin Schwegman, my former instructor. Sure enough, as we crossed the line, the VHF crackled and we were hailed by Standfast, the L34 in which I spent my first two weeks sailing. Colin now runs his own school (check out the link on the left)  and he brought a bunch of his guys out along with Sheila, his wife, to meet us. That was kind enough, but he instantly gained most-favoured-South-African-yachtie status with the crew, by bringing out two dozen cans of beer with him. They were guzzled with unseemly haste, and I don't believe I have ever tasted anything so good.

We came through to the Durban yacht mole to an outstanding welcome. There were Zulu dancers greeting us, with traditional Zulu beer. Mr Nadu, the deputy mayor of Durban greeted us with a very kind speech, and then we were free. I had two more cans of beer and every muscle in my body turned to jelly. I collapsed into the bunk a couple of hours after we arrived.

We were all exhausted. Our battle up the coast had been extremely tiring, not to say tiresome. Three ingredients made up a particularly unpleasant cocktail of misery.

First was the weather. The conditions were extremely unstable. The yacht is equipped to deal with a wide range of wind conditions. We have different sail plans depending on the speed of the wind and its direction relative to which way the yacht is pointing. However, changing those sails is an arduous business, and getting caught with the wrong sails up in a sudden wind shift is potentially dangerous. More than once, the wind speed went from a few knots to gale force, apparently at the flick of a switch. That would necessitate a rush to the foredeck to drop sails and put reefs in the main, otherwise the boat would overpower and could have been damaged. The sheer frequency of the changes was exhausting and wore our stamina down very quickly. The major casualty of the weather was our sadly-abused mid-weight spinnaker which exploded seconds before we dropped it in a wind shift. It has now been nicknamed "Jack" by the crew. As in "the Ripper".

Ingredient number two was the current. I mentioned before that the Agulhas was to be avoided at all costs. Easier said than done. We were hugging the land as much as possible to avoid it, but often wind conditions would push us out. It took very little error to find ourselves in lumpy seas being pushed back - the GPS telling us that we were making three or four knots less than our apparent boat speed through the water. We were actually relatively lucky. A couple of boats had to drop anchor to prevent themselves from going backwards.

And the third problem was the good ship Qingdao Clipper. 4000 miles after starting with them in Salvador we passed within 5 metres of them in the waters near Port Elizabeth. From then on, we had a fierce battle with them all the way up the coast. We thought we clinched it quite early on with some good trimming and fast headsail changes. We were clearly ahead of them as we tacked up the coast on the penultimate evening. But they defied a lightning strike, rough seas and sail damage to pass us that night, and we came on watch on Wednesday morning with them taunting us a couple of miles off our port bow in light air.

I can honestly say that Wednesday morning watch was the most unpleasant four hours sailing I have experienced. We changed sails relentlessly in very jumpy conditions. We were all tired, physically and mentally, and mistakes started to creep in, and tempers shortened. Just when we thought we were getting it together, the strop connecting the port spinnaker pole to its halyard snapped, and the outboard end collapsed into the water. On the way down, it bopped Conor on the head, which could have been very nasty, but he recovered quickly and worked on getting it back inboard. As we struggled to get it out of the water, one of the lines came loose and whipped me on the back of the head. 

"Bugger this sailing lark" was the gist of my thoughts as we headed below at watch change.

 In the end, we got them with a mixture of good tactics from Conor, a perfect sail plan, some luck with the wind, and some very hard work. Skipper took us out as wide as we dared so that we got a straight line to the finish, with the wind right on our tail and now mercifully steady. We poled out twin headsails, wich reduced our ability to steer but got good power from the wind. There was drama up to the end, with a sudden squall knocking out Qingdao's lightweight spinnaker and almost putting our boom in the drink, but we reefed in time, and got in about half an hour ahead of them.

Having been the victim of a tight finish in Salvador, I do sympathise with them, up to a point.

Since then, we have been cleaning and repairing the boat. We will have work to do all week, but people are peeling off to take some R&R in game reserves or the mountains or by the sea. We were pretty rushed in Salvador, but here I think we have enough time to work the boat over properly and get some rest.

Spare a thought for the crews of Durban and Glasgow who just struggled in today after beating through a dreadful headwind. Even more so, the guys on Jersey are due on Tuesday, and will barely get time to clean the boat before it is time to store for departure.

It was hard, no doubt about it, much harder than the first leg. But I guess that's the point. I know what you lot like. You want to hear about disasters, rigs falling down, crappy weather, malfunctioning toilets, and preferably some scurvy and maybe a mutiny thrown in for good measure. You don't want to hear about beautiful sunsets, friendly dolphins and starry nights. So, I'll take a hit just to keep you entertained. You'll forgive me if I don't want it to get too interesting.

Most of the time, it's pretty clear to me that this is an outstanding experience, even when the going is nasty. In the low points, the crew are there to cheer me up, as they did when I injured my knee (which is getting back to normal, although still a bit stiff). I had to laugh a few nights ago when we were caught in a squall. I was on the foredeck spitting out salt water, struggling with a staysail that wanted to go swimming and thinking, "Nope, this is not fun any more." Then Nicky Finan, five foot nothing of irrepressible good humour, bounced down beside me and chirped, "Hello, Joe!" as if we had just met down the shops on a Saturday morning. Suddenly, it wasn't so bad any more. 

By the way, a big thank you to all of you who are putting in comments. I don't get to see them until I am on shore as I update the blog by email, but they brought a smile to my face today reading them. I'm glad you are enjoying it.

Now, the rugby is on in the club bar upstairs. I think I'll have a couple of beers with the crew. Mmm, then maybe some fish in that nice restaurant across the way. Maybe a shower before I go out? Decisions, decisions.

Bugger this sailing lark...