Author: Diane

Today I went to see the wild horses of Namibia. The current theory is that they are the escaped/released horses from the European invasions. They have adapted to the desert environment and can go for 30+ hours without water.

There is a bit of a conflict between the ‘save the horses’ groups and the ‘nature conservancy’ groups because one group thinks the horses are natural and one thinks they are an exotic species. There are only 76 wild horses now.

One really interesting thing about this excursion is that we rode in a bus for an hour and a half to get to the horse area. During that drive, we could see how the landscape changed from rocks to sand dunes to the area where there was enough grass for the horses and oryx to survive.

When we returned from our excursion we had to go thru immigration since we are leaving Namibia tonight. Immigration officers came on board the ship so it was super easy to complete the process. Once you’ve gone thru the process you’re not allowed to leave the ship.

This evening’s show was CH2 which is two guitar players that were trained in the classic style but have a record for fastest strumming. They had a very diverse play list that included Hallelujah, Hotel California, Billie Jean and Canon in D major. It was an amazing performance.

It’s Valentine’s day and I”m off to see more sand dunes in Walvis Bay, Namibia.

Actually I’m heading to the Namib-Naukluft National Park to see more sand dunes, more sandscapes and the very odd Welwitschia plant.

The Welwitschia plant looks half dead, can survive in the desert with hardly any water, can live to be over 1000 years old and has only 2 leaves that split repeatedly. There are female Welwitschia plants and male Welwitschia plants.

Oddity per Wikipedia regarding illegal collecting of the Welwitschia: “Plants in Angola are better protected than those in Namibia, because the relatively high concentration of land mines in Angola keep collectors away.”

There is a lichen here that is black until it rains and then it turns green. There had been rain recently so much of the desert had a green tint.

People are generally very happy when the cruise ships arrive. There is 54% unemployment so any sales or tours that can be made to the cruise ship passengers make a big impact.

We’ve arrived at land(Walvis Bay, Namibia) after 10 days at sea. Everyone was happy to rush off the ship to be on dry, non-moving land. For the last few days on the ship we have had the rockiest water so far.

I celebrated by going on two excursions! One was a birding tour and the other was a drive in a Four-wheel drive vehicle to Sandwich Harbor. Both tours had many participants but they were separated into multiple vehicles. There were only 4 participants in my vehicle on the birding tour and 3 participants in my vehicle for the Sandwich Harbor tour. At least two vehicles stick together in case one gets stuck.

I was hoping for lots and lots of flamingos on the birding tour. There were plenty of flamingos but not the thousands and thousands I was hoping for.

We saw colonies of cape fur seals on the birding tour but the oddity for me was the number of dead young seals on the beach that were not eaten by predators. The young seals die from malnutrition or by being squashed by the big adult males when they are fighting for territory and females.

On the drive to Sandwich Harbor we saw all sorts of fun patterns on the sand dunes. Some of the dark patterns are made from iron that is in the sand. Our guide had a magnet and showed us that it was really iron by moving the magnet under a hand full of the dark ‘sand’ to show that it moved.

The Sandwich Harbor tour included driving up & down the sand dunes. On the drives down the face of the sand dunes, I offered my very exciting front seat view to the others in the vehicle but they declined.

Fun note regarding crossing the ocean- we had 5 time zone changes. Rather than changing 5 hours when we arrived at Namibia, we had 5 one-hour changes during the time at sea. It felt very different than airplane travel where the time changes all at once when you get there.

Today’s fun events were a pedicure and escaping the Escape room.

After the pedicure, I lounged at the Spa Terrace for a bit to let my toes dry out. It is a ‘private’ area with chaise lounges, shady & sunny areas and a hot tub. There are very few passengers here whenever I stop by.

The crew created an Escape Room in the library. Passenger teams signed up to participate. My team had a wonderful time solving the clues to come up with the phrase that would let us ‘escape’ the room.

Today’s carnival was fun. This time I played many more games and got loads of tickets and sill didn’t win any of the raffle prizes.

We had such fun at the ‘Around the World’ wine tasting earlier in the cruise, we did it again! They had tubs of wine and we got to taste whichever ones we wanted. I had some very tasty champagne/sparkling wine and sweet wines.

Jennifer and I enjoyed the Oceania Club celebration with drinks and Hors d’œuvres.

We are still 500ish nautical miles from Walvis Bay. Today the swells are about 10-12 feet and we’re still 13000+ feet above the ocean floor.

The highlight for today was the Superbowl party. The Superbowl was yesterday evening but because of the time change it was at about 1am local time. The cruise director asked everyone to keep mum about the score and we had a Superbowl party today.

The Superbowl party was such fun. The team I was cheering for won by a quite a few points to add to the excitement. The only bummer was we didn’t see any of the Superbowl commercials. There were commercials, of course, but they were all for the TV channel that broadcast the Superbowl none of the special Superbowl commercials.

We have had such calm seas, so far, on this segment. It’s weird to see the ocean so calm.

Today was fitness, a funny cook off challenge between 2 officers, a presentation on Namibia and Jennifer and I participated in a sing out loud ‘mob’. In the evening we went out star gazing.

The cruise hosts hosted a pub sing along event and the folks that have been rehearsing for our choir presentation ‘spontaneously’ stood up and started singing. It was lots of fun.

The evening star gazing didn’t turn out quite as well. The moon was almost full so the sky was bright but we could still see Jupiter and a few southern constellations. The ship lights were turned off at the top deck but folks were tripping all over the place so the lights were quickly turned back on.

Today was a slow day with not many activities and calm seas. The activities of the day were: laundry, sing out loud rehearsal, origami making and tea

We’re ‘only’ around 200 nautical miles away from Tristan Da Cunha but we still can’t see it. Still about 13,000 feet deep.

That’s one thing that I just can’t get used to- on the map things look so close but you can’t see them. Jennifer and I are using a couple of apps (Noah Weather and Marine Traffic) to show where we are compared to nearby land and ships. Even the ships look right next to us on the app but we can’t see them.

We has 3 meter sea swells all day today. The expected swells at Tristan Da Cunha were 4-5 meters. Imagine almost double the swell from the video below and you can see why we didn’t land at Tristan Da Cunha.

Last night we heard that we won’t be able to go to Tristan Da Cunha. Because of the sea conditions we wouldn’t be able to tender to the island or even set foot on land. I”m bummed as it was one of the stops I was looking forward to.

The captain changed course slightly to miss the 4 meter swells and stormy weather so that’s good news.

Another day at sea- fitness, cake decorating contest between crew groups, and sing out loud rehearsal. And we had a wine and cheese get together in our room with some friends we’ve met on board.

We’re now 620 nautical miles from the closest land which is Inaccessible island. The water is still over 13000 feet deep.

There’s a storm heading towards our next stop, the island of Tristan Da Cunha, The captain will decide later today or early tomorrow if we’ll be able to stop. Right now it’s looking unlikely as the swells are expected to grow to 4-5 meters.