Pirates and shipwrecks and handfuls of sandy diamonds.
We had been due to call at Walvis Bay Namibia today. However, we had awoken to find the ship completely surrounded by fog. A miasma so thick and opaque that you could barely see your hand out in front of you let alone a ship’s bollard or the bulkhead at the end of the balcony. The regular sounding of the ship’s fog horn was a mournful warning in a murkiness that not even a pirate would wish to enter.
On one hand the constant fog is treacherous, but on the other it is God’s gift, the life-blood of Namibia’s desert because it brings the moisture that the rains don’t. Here the rainfall averages only 2mm a year. The thick fog carries the much needed nutrients to the desert flora and fauna. Without it there would be nothing here.
Eventually, the Bridge team gave up on trying to navigate through the denseness and turned the ship west out into the Atlantic Ocean looking for a clear path and a sky to match, but resulting in cancelling our fellow passengers the opportunity to view the 'World’s largest sand dune', 'the World’s oldest desert' and possibly the World’s largest gathering of pink flamingos. Alas, they would also be denied the chance to walk along the beach here, but not because of fog. Certain beaches are off limits by law because of the proliferation of ‘sand diamonds' and the reported ability to pick them up whilst out for your morning ramble.
Beaches here are guarded by security guards with AK47s and, as it turns out, DeBeers.
A shame, because on a fine day the coast here has spectacular scenery of lines of diamond derricks anchored just off from its pristine beaches, drilling the sea bed for the valued mineral. I say ‘pristine' because they are not littered with the detritus of sunbathing tourists, let alone meandering locals carrying a bucket and spade for no apparent reason.
I have been lucky that we have called here a number of times previously when we have been able to get through to the port of Walvis Bay – when the fog has been tolerable, unlike the impenetrable fortress that we found today.
This beautiful but forbidding part of the African coastline is called the Skeleton Coast and not for nothing. There are over one thousand shipwrecks along its foreshore, all in various states of rot and disrepair and some dating back to the Portuguese of the 16th Century. The beaches, however, are littered not with just the whitened bones of seals and shipwrecks, but more than a few humans – we have been warned.
This thousand mile coastline is bordered on one side by the Namib Desert – arid and parched – while on the other side, the powerful frigid and pounding surf of the Atlantic. Shipwrecked sailors and passengers stranded here due to the perilous coastline, faced an arduous time between wreck and rescue. Depending on where they landed, if they chose, they could endure up to a month's walk to civilisation with many an intrepid tramper not surviving the trek.
The local bushmen call it “The land that God made in anger.”
The rugged and rocky sea coast still claims ships today. Even with the aid of modern technology, they are no match for the marine climate. Its unpredictable currents and rocky outcrops let alone its dense pea-soupers are ready to ensnare the most up-to-date liner. Our ship’s company has no desire to add us to the list so our abandonment of the port visit today will have few objectors amongst the ship’s officers.
I was walking along the promenade deck after our westerly course was undertaken and as we popped out of the haze, we were able to see the great cliff of white cloud that we had been trying to navigate through, running north and south for as far as the eye could see. Out here in the clear blue we seemed to have passed into a different dimension and one those previous luckless mariners must have been praying for before they found themselves beached on the coast.
And so we passengers emerged from the interiors of the ship and started using the outdoor pools and bathing areas onboard. The disappointment of missing hazy Namibia became a distant memory and I drifted off to sleep in the sun on my lounger where I dreamt of pirates and shipwrecks and handfuls of sandy diamonds drifting through my fingers. (ROSS THORBY)
