Enroute St Helena - Day 1

We left Luderitz around 09:45 yesterday morning into low clouds and cold air. The water temperature was 53*F inshore. It gets this cold from the Arctic current hitting the continental shelf and welling up. At least that is the theory. This cold water made last nights watches good and cold. Today the water is up 68*F, and the sun is out. Unfortunately the wind is only about 6kts, not enough to sail with. We made 137nm noon to noon on the first day, about a third of it actually sailing. Given all the motoring we've been doing it has allowed us to make a lot of water. We had to wait a few hours to start the watermaker, as the cold waters are full of krill that would block the pre-filters.
Right now we are pointing north of our direct course to try and get into some wind.
25*13S, 012*50E

Paul
--short

----------
Sent via SailMail, http://www.sailmail.com

4x4 Namibian Road Trip

Namib Dessert sunrise

After spending a few days in Luderitiz getting boat projects completed, i.e. fixing things in paradise, we rented a Ford Ranger 6 speed, diesel pickup to do some road touring.

After boat project days we would head into the Luderitz Yacht Club (more a cruiser friendly restaurant with showers) for cold beers in chilled mugs. You can see they take precautions seriously -- although this was the only thing I saw wearing a mask.

The towns focus is diamonds and crayfish. This is the De Beers diamond sorting facility.

It is dry, dry dessert surrounded by the cold South Atlantic. That is Georgia in front of the dark colored diamond boat. The diamond boats are dredges that operate offshore and suck up sand to be sifted to look for alluvial diamonds that are washing out of the desert sands via the Orange River.

The old train engine roundtable. Used to turn the locomotives around at the end of the tracks.

Nice driving car and with big enough tires (or as they say here tyres) to deal with the roads. The roads are numbered with a letter followed by numbers, like C27. The B roads are major routes, mostly paved and first to get maintained. The C roads are primarily gravel but get regraded quickly after any rain. The D roads are on a looser schedule. We drove about 6 hours north to the Namib-Nuakluft National Park, home of the red Namibian desert dunes commonly referred to as Sossusvlei, primarily on gravel roads all in 2-wheel drive. The 4 wheeling didn't come in till we entered the park and got near the end of the road. Then its 4-wheel drive-high and keep the speed up so you don't sink into the sand.

A train stop in the middle of nowhere once used to rewater the old steam engines.

 

Along the road you see the feral Namib Wild Horses. They were most likely released by the Germans around World War I. 

We were really lucky in our timing as there had been a rare rain a week earlier and large portions of the dessert were lush green. Locals said they had never seen it so green. Here are some Wildebeests and their babies enjoying some fresh salad.

The 300 meter high red dunes are astounding

Even some of the 'dry' salt pans were now small lakes.

They made me hike in the dessert heat to the Deadvlei, aka Dead Tree Saltpan.

The preserved dead trees are bigger than they look in the pics. That's Chris standing under this one.

The 'trail' - bring water.

The trail is well marked, but the signs tend to get smothered by the moving sand.

Baby ostriches trying to keep up with the boss.

Large Gemsbok (Oryx) enjoying the new grasses.

Not sure what this antelope is.

My friend, Spike, the Wildebeest.

Warthogs enjoying the leftovers put out by the cooks at the lodge we stayed at (Agama Lodge)

 

We took a short-cut on the way back to Luderitz, through the Namib Rand Park, making the 6 hour drive into 9 hours.

Soon after the helpful road sign some Hartman's Zebras showed up.

Some German General decided to build this castle in the middle of nowhere in the Namib Dessert in 1909, just before he was killed at the battle of the Somme-- but why?

Dessert preserved.

A Dust Devil, aka mini-tornado. 

Small 'Sociable Weaver' birds build these huge, communal nests.

___________________________________________________________

While we still had the truck, we went out to the ghost-town Kolmanskuppe, 20 minutes outside of Luderitz. It was the major diamond center in the first half of the 20th century. The diamonds were found literally lying on the sand. 

There are dozens of buildings left, mostly getting swallowed by the dessert. These are a row of luxury homes that were in town.

The dessert never stops

Building entrance sign

The hospital rooms getting engulfed in sand. The hospital had a wine cellar below it, so the patients could have their glass of wine a day -- doctors orders. It also had the first X-Ray machine in Africa. Not to help with fractured bones, etc, but to look for diamonds swallowed by workers trying to smuggle them out of the town. 

Luderitz bay flamingos, on a very windy day.

_____________________________________________________________

After sunset dessert glow

We cleared out of Namibia on Friday. We plan to leave for St Helena on Sunday morning. Approximately a 10 day sail to the middle of the South Atlantic ocean.

Paul

Arrived in Luderitz

Made it into Luderitz this afternoon after sailing in fog all day. On a mooring. Got cleared in this afternoon. Now to get a data card functioning on my phone, as my normal new arrival goto connection, Google Fi, doesn't work here.

Paul
--short

----------
Sent via SailMail, http://www.sailmail.com

Enroute Namibia Day 2

Noon to noon run day 1 was 143nm. Day 2 was a better showing of 170nm.
Yesterdat daytime and last night was -- how do you say - challenging. The winds decided to pick to mostly a sustained 30-35kts, with a nice section of 35kts gusting to 40kts Had to work through the list of things that never got tested after doing work on them in Cape Town. Pretty safe to say Chris and I are done with cold weather night watches. At least the moon was full, making night sailing a little more palatable. Should be in Luderitz harbor tomorrow morning, Friday.
29*16S,015*11E 015*, 6.3kts
--short

----------
Sent via SailMail, http://www.sailmail.com

Enroute Luderitz, Namibia

Left Cape Town at about 10:30 today. A bit sad to be leaving such an interesting country and to be seeing our cruising friends standing on the docks.
We motored for a few hours, sailed for a few hours, then motored for a few hours. About 18:00 the wind filled in and we've had a really nice sail since then. It is midnight now, with a full moon and small seas. A little on the cold side, but all and all pleaseant sailing.
32*51S,017*20E

Paul
--short

----------
Sent via SailMail, http://www.sailmail.com

Elephants and Elephants

 

Just thought I'd mess with you and start with a pedestrian road crossing, otherwise known here as a zebra crossing.

The Addo Elephant National Park is the third largest South African National park at 1,640 km² -- that's over 400,000 acres. It was founded in 1931 and contains a wide variety of African wildlife  -- specializing in the Elephants. Since the park stretches all the way to the Indian Ocean, it claims to be the only park in the world to house Africa's "Big 7“ -elephant, rhinoceros, lion, buffalo, leopard, whale and great white shark - in their natural habitat. We stayed at a high-end place, the Hitgeheim Country Lodge. We took the mid-week special where we paid for two nights and got the third free.

The private suite

What I always dreamed of as a child, my own princess bed.

Being sophisticated eating my soup de jour along with two glasses of red wine.

OK, that's as long as I can hold off posting elephant pictures. The best place to watch the herd was near the waterholes. For us, the afternoon bathing was the peak.

Water games seems to be the young elephants sport.

This one managed to dig his tusk into the mud.

A baby breastfeeding. 

Not an elephant - a golden mongoose

This is a really young elephant

The teenagers playing

A leopard tortoise 

A Red Hartebeest

Another old. lonely, bachelor Cape Buffalo who was kicked out of the herd

A Jackal in the distance, getting ready for cleanup duty

Eland

Well covered with their sunburn protection dirt

A Red Bishop, a type of weaver bird

When you are driving along the dirt roads in the park they ask you not to drive over the elephant dung piles, so you don't harm the Dung Beatles. These guys do a good job of cleaning up the dung and keeping the flies down.

A Dung Beatle crossing the road in front of us.

Working really hard to roll his fist-sized dung ball back home.

Kudu

The wild male ostriches are much larger than the ones in the ostrich farms. The top of this guys legs was near the roof top of our little rental car. You would not want to tussle with him.

Another Golden Mongoose doing his I'm surprised look.

This guy was up on all fours and in a hurry to get across the road.

Heading home for the night

The newborns stick close to mom

As soon as the herd starts moving they surround the baby for group protection. They walk so close to the small one that it looks like it will get trampled by the huge feet stomping down. Somehow they all manage to not hurt the youngster.

More teenage boy behavior.

A 13 seconds no-videos in the blog violation -- elephants running to the water hole

Gotta say, I really like this picture.

Paul