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| New pet? |
Walvis Bay Is always calm and lovely in the morning but then…. just like Perth…it blows dogs off chains all afternoon and into the evening. Now its blowing about 25kn to 30kn. We usually go ashore in the calm weather and get a couple of jerrys of water. We can't make water in the bay because there are too many jelly fish and a lot of sediment coming out of the big lagoon. There are lots of flamingos wandering around in the water and sometimes they fly! They look really stupid flying!! All necks and legs!!
The seals are funny they come alongside, bang on the boat and yell at us. They all try to get up the transome but it's too slippery. We had a seal jump up on the boat. He followed us back in the dingy then jumped aboard and joined David in the dingy. Then he followed David onto the deck and into the cockpit. Sat on the table then went for a look about before settling for a snooze on the aft cushion.
The seal has been back again a few times... We have bought it some fish for when it visits… but they're Portugese pilchards and he's not that fussy about Portugese fish obviously. However he does take them and enjoys throwing them about and chasing it… its dead of course… maybe he's trying to convince himself its not dead? Its like a cat with a mouse.
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| Swakkopmund architecture. |
The Pelicans drop by for a fish now and again too.
The other morning the seal went aboard the yacht next door. French canadians…. they just got back from land travel and have two boys about 13 and 6. There was a huge flurry and very loud squealing and shouting when it jumped on. Then they went to get the camera and it chased them…. Thinking they were going to get more fish for it! More squealing… then one of the kids grabbed the gaff. Fortunately about then it realized it wasn't welcome and dived overboard. It came over to us and we gave it a fish to play with. It seem un fazed, but the neighbours built a barricade across the back of their boat. Its open at the back and really easy for seals to board!!
We had a couple of days with a car at the beginning of the week, and drove up to an old German town called Swakopmund. It must have been a pretty rough joint in the old days… There is a photo in the museum of bloke riding a longhorn steer with a saddle and bridle on and baggage loaded on others! The country is absolute desert, just sand or quarts like rock. It would have been really hard on hooves of horses or cattle and difficult for camels. They did import camels and used some for police patrols. There is camel tour you can do but we passed on that… seen that desert… enough….its like moonscape!! good place to film though thats about all. We only saw a few springbok and some ostrich.
Swokopmund itself is very touristy... mostly German. There is quite a display in the museum about how they fought for Hitler… till they got rounded up an put in camps!!! There are a number of impressive old buildings.
We have the new additional batteries installed. They are not flash as we have had to buy some cheapish truck batteries (about $500 …about the cost of the really nice ostrich skin bag) but they should get us to Caribbean and can hopeful sell again for something. The Auto pilot is waiting in the capital about 400km away and has been there a week now. DHL (Darn Hopeless Lot) have been sitting on their hands there. Took just three days from Queensland to Windhouk but a week there and still no sigh of it arriving here.
So we are still sitting here …waiting …seems to be our lot..our supply of wine is going down at an alarming rate!…and we are eating our supplies for crossing the South Atlantic.
Photos of NAMIBIA
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| Dunes just south of Swakopmund |
