Namibia 2014

Tuesday7thOctober

Today, we leave Swakopmund for Walvis Bay, a port located about thirty kilometers south. A shuttle takes us there. We booked a cruise in the bay the day before to get close to sea lions, pelicans and perhaps dolphins and whales... In the meantime, a short stop is made near a group of Greater Flamingos (Phoenicopterus roseus).

This Pied Avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) has traded pink for black...

The pier, starting point of the cruise.

Quickly, without knocking, a sea lion climbs onto the deck. We quickly understand that it is used to it and that it doesn't come here by chance...

The hostess has everything she needs in her cooler to reward the mammal.

Another much sturdier sea lion replaces its friend. These are Cape fur seals (Arctocephalus pusillus).

The front and rear flippers with their claws.

Now, a gull comes to show off at the front of the boat...

It's a Kelp Gull (Larus dominicanus).

The cooler starts to attract more and more people. It's the pelicans' turn to show their beaks.

This bird is incredibly imposing. It can exceed 160 cm and 280 cm wide with wings spread. The pouch under its beak can hold up to 13 liters of water!

And what a magnificent beak! It doesn't just have a simple yellow beak, but a superb combination of yellow, blue, and red!

Its white feathers give it its name, the Great White Pelican (Pelecanus onocrotalus).

And meanwhile, the boat approaches the end of "Pelican Point", a sandy peninsula that extends into the bay. And positioned on this sandy horizon, the Pelican Point lighthouse.

Dating from 1932, the black and white lighthouse is accompanied at its base by the old control post now converted into a hotel!

And as guardians of the lighthouse, the building is surrounded by a huge colony of fur seals!

Walvis Bay is the only port in Namibia capable of accommodating large ships.

The Liberian ship Noble Tom Madden

And for tourists, there's everything you need in small boats...

For now, it's under the watchful eye of the Dominican gull that we're looking for dolphins...

And finally, we spot them, or at least their fins...

Colonies are always found in the same places. But the seals themselves move in small groups from colony to colony.

And just when we least expected it, the whales make their appearance, always stealthily, but we recognize them well. We won't get the grand moment we shared in Argentina with the southern right whales that approached us very closely, but it's always a pleasure to see these enormous mammals majestically come to breathe at the surface.

These are humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) that can reach 14 meters and more than 25 tons.

After coming directly to the boat, the white pelicans now return to see us in formation.

With its 2.80 meter wingspan, its ease of gliding next to us is truly impressively beautiful!

Meanwhile, a seal puts on a show in the wake of the boat. In any case, you can tell it's enjoying itself and that it's its daily little game.

Last demonstrations of gliding flights before returning to port...

The shuttle takes us back to Swakopmund. Then we set off to discover the city. "Swakopmund was founded in 1892 by German colonists about fifty kilometers north of the large port of Walvis Bay. [...] It is undoubtedly the city in Namibia where German (large Germanic community) and Afrikaans are most spoken." © Wikipedia

Swakopmund beach. There aren't many people, we're off-season.

After the black and white lighthouse of Walvis Bay, the red and white lighthouse of Swakopmund.

Commemoration of the marines' uprising in 1904.

Herero Namibians in traditional costume.

We're doing our shopping in the small local supermarket, and surprise, the Christmas decorations are already up, and the cashier even has a Santa hat! It's October 7th!  

For dinner, we're moving away from our grilled meats with a good pizza!

Tomorrow we continue our ascent north and will come close to the largest colony of fur seals in the world!