Day 86 – Seals and Sandboarding.

Blog — By Buspass on December 17, 2012 3:10 pm

An ever so gentle start to the day. We drove from Swakopmund down to Walvis Bay and then around to Pelican Point. Walvis Bay is the only port in Namibia so everything goes in and out here. Walvis to Pelican Point was 40k along a sand spit teeming with birdlife. And in particular flamingos. By the thousands. A spectacular sight in the stillness of the early morning.

We unloaded kayaks for all at the point and paddled around the coastline, fascinated by the incessant family squabbles in the enormous seal colonies on the water’s edge. All would be calm and then some large bull seal would take objection to an intruder or a stroppy female and go charging through the ranks scattering all, including all the pups, before him. They have absolutely no regard for the seal pup creches and just steam through. There must be many casualties. These inquisitive seals would pop up all around the kayaks and leap well out of the water. There were a few dolphins around to add variety to the mix and of course countless seabirds. Terns, flamingos, pelicans, curlews, oystercatchers, sandpipers, avocets, guls and even an osprey. Once I am sure the Med would have been like this before we wiped out all the fish. At one stage we saw 3 large jackals trotting behind the seal colony. The young pups were completely at their mercy but I suspect they were spoilt for choice. They trotted on by.

Lunchtime saw us bid farewell to Imelda. He was very tearful, 3 abandoned baby seal pups under one arm (I am sure Kitty will embrace the enlarged family with open arms) and his shopping under the other. His lunatic antics on the bike will be sorely missed.

We returned for a proper coffee at Bojos and met up with another biker called Johann. It is worth recounting that he bought his BMW GS800 in 1983, 5 years before George was born, and so far has travelled 560,000 kilometers on it, relatively trouble free.

The afternoon was occupied by our first assault on the sport of sandboarding. When I say we, that is, Sam George and I and Gregg. Tim went shopping and Charles and Nick were hors de combat. It is simply snowboarding on steep sand dunes. It works. Just. And you have to walk up. Have you tried walking up a steep sand dune recently. Doesn’t seem to be taking off, cannot think why. Underwhelming, although George showed promise.

No sign of the Stigma today other than mysterious bike tracks in the dunes. J