"No, it's a seal."

You know it's a good vacation when you totally don't know what day of the week it is. We find ourselves saying "Wait, is today Saturday?" Or when we enter into a new country and have to fill out the customs form we always have to say "What is the date again?" This is the benefit of two week vacations and we highly recommend them to everyone.


Even on vacation, all good things must come to an end. That means that we had to leave the comfort of Little Kulala to hear north to Swakopmund. We were booked on the scenic charter flight, which essentially meant that we were also getting a tour of the Skeleton Coast by air. Given how windy it was, our pilot Christine warned us the flight may be a bit turbulent. Maybe because it was a bigger plane (about a 15 seater) or maybe she was just a good pilot but it was a smooth and easy flight. She took us over Sossusvlei and the Namib National Park. It was amazing to see the expanse of the dunes from the air. She pointed out an old, abandoned diamond mine. We saw a couple of ship wrecks. And then we landed in Swakopmund.

The climate here feels so different from Kulala. It is cool, and almost damp. The town is very German in feel, almost colonial like. You can really see and hear in the language that influence. Since we missed Windhoek, it was the first Namibian city (and I use that term loosely...maybe it is a town) that we visited. It feels very safe and easy to walk around. One odd thing we found is that the temperature seems to vary from block to block. We are only a few blocks from the sea and the dunes are close in the other direction so maybe that causes the winds and different temperatures. Oh, and as we have learned throughout out travels, most cities/countries don't have stores and restaurants as widely open on weekends as the US does. Still, we had a good afternoon just walking around.

Our Sunday (see? I figured out what day of the week it is) we had much more planned. We were taking a full day excursion to Walvis Bay, for a half day sail and a half day 4x4 dune drive. First, an important fact about Walvis Bay...and not that it was at one point under British rule as they wanted a port while the rest of Namibia was under German rule, although that happened...it is the birthplace of Shiloh Pitt, Brad and Angelina's first child they had together. You can thank me later for that trivia fact. Another important fact that we didn't really know...Namibia can be really chilly. It was windy at the start of our cruise and we both had on as many layers as we had with us. But there was this mist in the air and it was windy so we might as well have been back in Ushaia, close to to South Pole.

We were on a boat named Sandy which held about 12 people. It was one of the smaller boats. Our guide was great and told us she hoped we would see seals, dolphins, maybe whales and lots of birds including pelicans and flamingos. We saw tons of seals but the dolphin hunting was a bit futile. There were a few but everyone kept thinking they saw dolphins and then there would be a bit of a sigh and then the resigned statement "no, that was just a seal." Poor seals. They will never reach dolphin status.

Can I complain once again about our general lack of the metric system? At one point our guide wanted us to guess the weight of a pelican. People started by throwing out 5 kilos. The guide turned to Moira and asked if it was more or less. And Moira said honestly "I have no idea" as we have no frame of reference for 5 kilos. Is it 10 pounds? 5 pounds? No idea.

And did I mention it was cold on the boat? I pictured us wearing Tevas and shorts and throwing back some beers. Instead, we had on just about everything we brought, my nose was bright red, and I couldn't feel my fingers or toes.

As a result, while we enjoyed the boat ride, we were happy when we got off at Pelican Bay and got into warm jeeps for the next leg of our journey. We ended up in a two jeep caravan, along with a family of 7 Swiss people who had apparently never felt sand before as they were so excited at every stop to take off their shoes and feel it or to lay down on it. As east coasters who grew up around water and sand, this was a little odd to us. But to each his own. We made multiple stops throughout the day, to take pictures of the dunes, to climb the dunes to learn more about the plant and animal life. Each stop actually got a bit warmer and sunnier. And the Swiss actually had the right idea in taking off their shoes as the sand was really nice and warm. The best stop though was lunch where our two guides served us a great seafood lunch with the amazing oysters they have here. They were big and fresh and so good. The other highlight was jumping off a dune to try to get a fun picture. The Swiss did it better than us. Maybe they practice by jumping off Alps in their spare time.

This is somewhat a short entry but not a lot happened since last time. Also, as I am unsure of our Internet access on our next two stops, this may be the last post I have until end of week.

Until then, here are a few things we learned:

- It is hard to farm oysters here as the waters are so cold. But they have figured out a way which involves s lot of manual labor. They, meaning the oysters, were originally brought in from Chile. There are 2,000-5,000 oysters in each basket. Each one is removed and hand polished. They get 40,000 liters of water every half hour (is that a lot?). A medium size oyster is about 9 months old. They are sweet and fat. They lost 175 million oysters in 2008 when the red tide came in and increased the water temperature from 14 Celsius to 29 Celsius in 14 hours. I do have a temperature converter on my phone so I know that means it went from 57 F to 84 F. The lobsters, crabs and other sealife that can were walking out of the ocean to get away from the heat.

- Pelican Point is growing. They have to dredge it 3 times a year or it will close off the harbor within 50 years.

- Namibia was also under South African rule after World War I. You can still see signs of it there was one point along the highway where our driver told us that coloureds still tend to live on one side and blacks on the other.

- If you are ever in Swakopmund, eat at either Driftwood or The Tug. Both were delicious. And wine is so inexpensive here given the proximity to South Africa.

- The dolphins were trying to spot are the smallest in the world. Maybe that is why they were so elusive.

Standing in the harbor, cold, waiting to board our boat



Our boat, the Sandy. Notice the mist. This kept up during the whole ride.



Our lunch on the dunes, complete with oysters and champagne. It was finally warmer so we could shed layers. You can't see it, but there was also blue sky.