May 9, 2012 - Luderitz, Namibia

May 9, 2012 - Luderitz, Namibia

Namibia is just north of South Africa on the Atlantic. We sailed all night mostly through fog, as the horn kept blowing. We had breakfast with Don and Myrna and are now waiting to clear immigrations before going on our tour. The weather is good, clear and sunny, not very hot so far.

Luderitz is located on the edge of the Namib Desert and is a relic of German colonial rule having been establish by German merchants. Diamonds were discovered in 1908 which was a boom to the economy. After World War I Germany lost control of Namibia to South Africa. And the country wad named West South Africa. English is the official language. Around the early 1980's it gained it's independence and was named Namibia.

We took a walking tour of the town, Luderitz. We stopped at the local museum, church, and the mansion of a former German merchant. Could have done it on our own. After about two hours we had time to shop. You know the shopping is no good when Evelyn can't find anything to buy. I did pick up two 6-packs of a local beer called Tafel brewed in Windhoek, the Capitol to bring on the ship. I used the last of my SA Rand, $5 a 6-pack. Don and Myrna took the shuttle back to the ship and Evelyn and I walked back.

We had lunch and then played bridge for an hour. The ship sailed around 4pm and we were soon in fog again. We found out that this is the area known as the skeleton coast. I think because of the number of ship wrecks do to the fog. Sounds like something out of a trashy novel.

After bridge we all took a nap. Because we have 1st seating dinner there is not a lot of time for napping before dinner.

We had drinks in the cabin, and the infamous plate of canapé started showing up again. We are not sure why we get them, but they were nice with our drinks.

We got down to the dinning room about 6:15pm and had no problem finishing dinner by 7:30pm without feeling rushed. We will push to 6:30pm.

The show was Clare Langham, a flautist, a flautist plays the flute for the uninformed. We had seen her before, if you sail enough you begin see the same performers, and I enjoy her playing. She was really quite good.

Tomorrow we are in Walvis Bay, Namibia.


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Hal