Octopus Garden

Up at 7:30 am. The bed wasn't quite as nice as the hotel but it was nice and warm. Breakfast was eggs, bacon and toast. What a civilized way to start the day.
The van picked us up at 8:15 and Lerece, Jim, Ryah, Mick and I headed off to our dolphin cruise. The morining is cool and foggy as we head back to Walvis Bay (where there were no flamingos yesterday). It takes 30 minutes or so to drive to the docks and while you could still see the fog hanging around the edges, the fogs magically lifted from the bay as we passed the half way point.

We're travelling on the Ocean Lady with another group of tourists. When we line up to go down the plank it seems like we all won't fit on the boat but in the end, there was plenty of room. Our guide is a young man with a good sense of humour. He motors us out into the bay and we receive our first visitor. A seal named Robbie. He's pretty big and he hops right up onto the rear gang and into the middle of the boat. Our guide feeds him fish (I guess Robbie knows the routine) while he tells us about this type of seal. We can pet him and have our photo taken. They look slimy but they are actually furry - the inner fur stays dry and only the outer fur gets wet and shields against the cold water.

Next a smaller baby seal and then a big seal named Spotty. Spotty didn't seem to want to leave. He just laid down in the middle of the boat like he was going to go to sleep. I think he's had too much to eat from all the other tour boats that have already been out on the bay. Our guide has to toss some fish off the back so Spotty will go after it and then take off at high speed so he can't keep up with us.

We come across an abandoned Russian cargo ship that seems to have been taken over by cormorants (you can smell it before you see it). Apparantly as soon as the ship reached the bay a few years ago, the company went bankrupt. The sailors had to live on the ship for two years until someone from Walvis Bay bought it for scrap and sent them home.

We headed out to the edge of the bay where there is a large seal colony. All there was besides the seals was a single lonely looking lighthouse to guide the ships into the bay. The seals here pretty much ignored us and continued playing and barking and generally splashing about. Our guide passed around glasses of brown sherry to warm us up and help us "see the dolphins".

News went out that some bottle nose dolphins had been spotted closer to shore so off we flew! You don't often see this type of dolphin so it was our lucky day. The dolphins were found close to the 'poop deck'... a large platform that is used to let birds to nest on so they can haul it in later to harvest the guano and sell it... who knew poo could be profitable!!

There were already 3 boats drifting about when we arrived. We spent some time trying to entice the 3 dolphins to swim in our wake and generally do those touristy things you always see in the promo videos. They weren't in the mood but I didn't really care - we got to see dolphins being dolphins.

We watched some men hauling in a large fishing net by hand. Our guide said it was full of sardines. The local birdlife seemed very interested in what was going on!

We motored back to the bay for champagne and snacks and floated about enjoying the fresh air and sunshine. Our guide was feeding Pelicans from the boat that would fly next to us and grab fish from his hand.

As we started to head back to the docks I noticed a seal swimming along side and leaping in and out of the water. It eventually pulled up behind us and somehow hauled itself up onto the boat (we were moving at a fairly good clip). It was Spotty again. We had to use the same tactic to get him off again and then took off for the docks.

We all loaded back into the van and made the trip back to Swakop to hook up with the waiting truck. After several glasses of champagne I was a bit sleepy so I snoozed the entire way back. At the hostel we loaded back into the truck and headed out.

We made a stop at the Cape Cross seal colony. There can be 80 to 100 thousand seals here at any one time. As you walked closer to the shoreline and the seals, the smell grew stronger and stronger. There is a walkway that you are asked to stay on as you walk up and down to view the colony. We also spotted a pack of black backed jackals skulking about. They definitely looked like they were well fed which I'm guessing is from the ample supply of baby seals. We also could see the remnants of one or two meals. If I could have picked up some bones for Michael or Peter (no, not Becker) I would have!

After a brief visit with the seals we were off to the truck and driving the 45 minute back track to the main highway. We are driving to Spitzkoppe.

As we were driving we noticed markers in the fields made of white sand bags which formed large squares. We were told that they were to mark plotlines for uranium prospecting. This country has a very rich mineral wealth. There are many stalls along the roadway with tables full of shiny stones for sale

When we reach Spitzkoppe we are struck by the unusual rock formations. There are large round mountains of stone and then sideways stacks like the Flatirons in Boulder. There are cave drawings nearby but we arrived at camp after dark and need to set up camp and eat dinner so we can't check them out.

We're camping at the base of a very large, very smooth rock. The family next to us seems unimpressed that an overlander truck has arrived and I'd say the dad was downright rude. The mother was shouting something in Afrikans that I'm pretty sure was not pleasant and a very poor example for their young daughter.

After dinner we sat around the campfire and talked into the evening. Tomorrow we head to Etosha for big game hunting.