This morning we pulled into the harbor of a town called Walvis Bay which is the main sea port for Namibia. It has a long history of contact with Europeans dating back to 1485 when nearby Cape Cross was visited by Diogo Cao and 1487 when Bartolomeu Dias anchored in Walvis Bay itself. Interestingly while Walvis Bay is one of the few places on the Namibian coast that provides good anchorage for ships it has no natural water supply even today. That handicap explains the near by town of Swakopmund which sits at the mouth of the similarly named Swakopmund River and hence has a water supply but does not have any form of protected acnhorage for ships. So the two towns are somewhat symbiotic. Swakopmund provides the water and Walvis Bay provides a lifeline to the rest of the world. Incidentally the names reflect their earlier colonial history with Walvis Bay being English and Swakopmund being German. Tourism is the main business of both towns.s

This morning we pulled into the port of Luderitz, a small town or village, in southern Namibia and at the southern end of the Namibian Desert which is called The Namib. The country of Namibia is famous for this coastal desert, which is the oldest desert in the world, and which runs the full length of the Namibian coast, starting in South Africa and running north into Angola. As you can see from the photos below the desert is a mix of sand and stone and is very dry getting on average about 15mm of rain per year.

As mentioned in yesterdays post, Capetown was a changeover point from one cruise to the next. It was also a point at which there was a chnage over for a lot of the staff. We noticed this last night at dinner with a lot of new faces amongst the restaurant staff. So today the Captain (who has not changed) held a cocktail party to introduce the new members of his senior staff.

The stop in Cape Town is the end point of the East Africa cruise and the start of West Africa Cruise and as a result most passengers are disembarking and a whole new bunch are boarding. A similar thing happened in Mumbai which is where the East Afrca cruise started. On such change-over days there are usually no excursions organized by the cruise ship, but by popular demand one was organized for today. It was a quick tour of the city center, followed by a ride in the cable car to the top of Table Mountain followed by a drive along the beaches of Cape Town. As you can see in the photos below the weather gods smiled on us for this activity, with a beautiful orange sunrise followed by a warm day with bright blue sky. The cable car ride up and down Table Mountain was less delightful as there was a huge crowd at the mountain and the ride up had us queuing for 2 hours. But still the views from the top were worth the hassle.

We were at sea all day to day only arriving into the port of Cape Town as sun set. The sunset was glorious and left a wonderful red/orange after glow on the horizon. As we approached the port we had some great views of the mountains behond the city which include the well known Table Mountain and The Lions Head.