A verandah with a view

This is the view of the waterhole opposite the hotel dining room. It the afternoon of day 3 and we have just watched two lionesses stalk and catch a Springbok foal. This is on top of sitting within 6 feet of two male lions this morning. Elephants,  ack and white rhinos, cheetah & cub, hyena, oryx and every antelope and bird imaginable. Blog is going to be hard. Must go, a warthog is attacking my room verandah!

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Monday 28th January 2013 +2.00 hrs GMT: At Sea En Route to Walvis Bay ­ Off Namibia ­ Sooty Ahoy!

No not the puppet “Sooty & Sweep” of my TV youth but a Sooty Shearwater circling the ship as we shark bait.

As you know I leave the ship tomorrow morning in Walvis Bay for a 4 day Safari to the Onguma Plains.  I should be back aboard late on Friday evening when I re-join the ship in Cape Town.  I then have two busy days in Cape Town so postings may be a bit sparse for the next 5/6 days.  I am going to take my mobile so providing the Fort where we are staying has a reasonable Wi-Fi I will try and get a few short postings and photos on the Blog.

I disembark at 8.15am tomorrow and have a 2-hour flight in a Cessna four seater aircraft to the Mokuti Airstrip. The 5* hotel is in a renovated German Fort so as our Expedition Leader in the Antarctic would have said “You are going on a gin Safari (Gin palace cruise)”.  The hotel boasts ‘one of the best sunset views in the whole of Namibia – from my private verandah of course! – overlooking the beautiful scarceness of the Etosha Pans, decorated with only its wild animals and hundreds of Camel Thorn trees that dot the landscape and in full view of a waterhole at which various species of buck, giraffe, lion, zebra and birds come to drink and frolic daily”!!  Are you jealous yet!!

Well I will do my best to share what promises to be a unique experience through the Blog on my return.

Au Revoir for now.

Monday 28th January 2013 +2.00 hrs GMT: At Sea En Route to Walvis Bay ­ Off Namibia ­ The Captain Goes Shark Fishing!

Its 1.50pm as I write this post and I am just about to lose an hour of my life as we advance the clocks 1 hour at 2.00pm so that we will be + 2hours ahead of UK.

We are 90 miles off the Namibian coast and in shark water. So we are ‘hove to’ with a bloody mass of meat dangling in the ocean from one of the ship’s davits in the hope of attracting sharks.  Sadly after an hour no sharks appeared so the Captain decided to see if he could do better with a rod and line!!

Since Hammerheads have super sensitive smell (1 part in a million) even the smallest piece of meat should have attracted them but as the Captain put it “they were all in conference on the other side of the ocean”!

A Hammerhead shark was spotted yesterday afternoon but you would have had to be on the deck all day to have caught it.  Not much wildlife around and the weather is overcast with a long slow swell running.  Last night you might as well have been in a schooner or clipper with all the creeks and bangs!  We are well ahead of schedule for Walvis Bay tomorrow morning and have been cruising at about 8 knots for the last day or so!!  In these conditions a hammock would be very handy.

I did, however, get a photo of a Sooty Shearwater – see the next a last posting for a few days.

Thursday 24th January 2013 0GMT: At Sea En Route to Walvis Bay ­ Chinese Fashionista Causes Storm on International Night!

I have found the perfect way to get noticed and that is to wear this T’ai chi suit that I had made in China on the Yangtze last May. This traditional suit is actually made for wearing when undertaking T’ai chi exercises but this evening it was perfect for the international themed dress evening.  So plenty of Ni hao (Hello), and ‘see you are wearing your pyjamas’! But overall many expressions of delight and very comfortable to wear although I had to sport a pair of red braces underneath since when I had the suit made I was nearly 2 stone heavier!!  It is made of satin and fully lined and the symbols represent ‘Hope, Love and Happiness’ in Chinese characters.

We are ploughing our way to Walvis Bay.  As I write it is mid-day on Saturday 26^th January and we have 3 more days at sea before arriving in Namibia.  I have just had a briefing for the 4-day Safari that I am taking from 29^th Jan to the Etosha National Reserve.  I will write a posting before I leave but just to make you jealous I have a room with a private balcony overlooking one of the water holes!!!  We also have the Photography Manager as Tour Escort so should be able to get some great photos and he is making a video as well!!

Thursday 24th January 2013 0GMT: At Sea En Route to Walvis Bay ­ Greetings from Point Zero Zero!

At precisely 12.00noon today this buoy (See photo) that marks Point Zero Zero (0 Degrees longitude – Greenwich Meridian and 0 degrees Latitude – the Equator) hove into sight off our port bow.  Its on such a long anchor chain that it swings about in the currents so is more symbolic than actual although the ship itself did sail through Point 0.0.

Today was sunny and calm after very overcast skies yesterday with electrical storms.  The air temperature outside is 84 F and the sea is 82F!!  Bit warmer than at home then!!

Next stop Walvis Bay in Namibia where we arrive on Tuesday 29^th January and I shall be leaving the ship for a 4 day Safari to the Etosha Salt Pans.  This is where the Giraffe fight that recently appeared on the Africa programme took place.  We will be flying for an hour or so in a 4 seater Cessna aircraft so should get a good feel for Namibia.  I’m told it will be a bumpy ride at under 10,000ft with all the thermals from the desert below!!  Sounds exciting though.

Postings will not be possible whilst on Safari and once I re-join the ship in Cape Town on Friday 1^st February I have two busy days of sight seeing – Table Mountain and Robben Island.

Thursday 24th January 2013 0GMT: At Sea En Route to Walvis Bay Namibia ­ King Neptune Returns to the Depths

As we prepare to cross the Equator – a year ago I was straddling it on land in Quito Ecuador) – King Neptune and his entourage board the ship and after raiding the rum store sets about prosecuting the Captain and his officers for various heinous crimes – such as rolling people out of bed crossing the Bay of Biscay, painting guests whilst they are asleep on loungers and the like.  The inevitable sentence is to “kiss a smelly fish” or King Neptune’s bride – a prickly affair since she hadn’t shaved for the occasion!!  Of course everyone and I mean everyone lands up in the pool!!  All good fun and one of the best ‘crossing the line’ events I have witnessed.

Eventually King Neptune returns to the depths (Photo) and Black Watch is allowed to proceed across the Equator.