Touring Walvis Bay, Namibia
06 February 2016
Bill/blowing at 20+ knots
We headed in a bit later than we thought this morning to start exploring Walbis Bay. We found a pier to tie Puff to and got permission once on shore. The Yacht Club is nice but their dock leaves a bit to the imagination as far as boat safety goes. It's showing it's age shall we say. A local couple offered us a ride to shore when we stopped them and asked directions. Tracy is the mans hero for doing what she does--sails a boat. He was amazed that not only does she do it, that she bought the boat. Our first job was to find land based internet. Unfortunatley by the time we found Telcom, it was closed. They close at 1130 on Saturday!!! Only open three hours so we will have to do with free wifi at restaurants till then. We walked down the street looking at all the stores and found several markets for more provisions. One, called "Trust Market" was quite good with a nice selection rivaling all the other much bigger stores we have been in. We found Pick N Pay as well as Spar, two that we have shoped at while in South Africa and the Seychelles. We walked a bit more and stopped in looking for water jerry cans as ours are pretty much shot after 6 years on board. With luck we will find them. A cruise liner is berthed at the wharf so there are a good many tourists walking around the town, many coming out to the Walvis Bay Yacht Club and it's surrounding restaurants and busInesses. We stopped in at "The Anchor" restaurant as it had come highly recommended by Neal on Rutea, another of our cruiser friends. He and Ruthie have been in Walvis for a week and were setting off this morning for St. Helena. It's about a 1250 miles trip so they will at sea about 10 days or so. After a very nice lunch(I had Thai Curry while Tracy had the Barbecue Basted Ribeye steak). Both were great so Neal was right. Plus they had free WiFi so we could pick up our emails from the last three days. We spent some time walking around like tourists seeing and visiting the curio shops along the wharf. We actually found a Namibian tee shirt. In Luderitz, all we found were shirts advertising Catapillar tractors, or Nike Shoes of Chevrolet. Not a single shirt that said any thing about Namibia. We walked out and got into Puff and started the out board and headed back for Zephyr about 1500 as the wind had grown to about 20 knots. The swells had kicked up a bit of serf so we each got just a tad damp during the trip. Once back on board, we made sure to tie two lines to Puff, just in case something happens. It would be catistrophic to loose her. A French monohull dragged its anchor a few days ago and they ended up on the rocks with a bent rudder shaft. They are getting pulled out sometime today. We anchored in a spot yesterday but two boats left this morning so we pulled up our anchor and repositioned our selves a good bit closer to shore. Once the anchor had hit bottom(12 feet deep) we pulled back and set it in the mud. When we lifted it earlier, along with it came three small octpuses as well as a small snail. All went back in the water. The anchor itself was covered in mud and sand so we knew it had dug in well when we dropped it the day before. We hadn't moved an inch during the night according to our "Anchor Watch" program. This time we let it drop and then pulled back on it hard several times before we even put on the snubber. Once it was on, we did it a couple more times just to make sure it was set. It's howling outside as I'm typing this post. Hope it calms down a bit so we can get poor Puff on board later. The pictue today is of a pelican that joined us at the restaurant. Obviously not afraid of people as it let me pet his head! Others came along and lots more pictures were taken by other tourists. Not sure what the "kids" would have done if he had stopped on board but I can take a guess--run and hide!