Waving at seals (Namibia)

Member Name: Otjiwarotji

Product:	Namibia
Date:	26/09/01 (105 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Amazing sights for wildlife lovers, Vast open spaces, A must for would be wildlife photographers

Disadvantages: The smell, culling takes place

I really wanted to share my amazing experiences on my once in a lifetime trip to Namibia, but there were so many wonderful events that I can't fit it all in to one op so I have decided to break it down and write it bit by bit, like a series (you have been warned!). I noticed that the only other person who has written in this category, up to now, has never actually been to Namibia yet it is her dream destination, well I have been fortunate enough to spend 3 weeks there and it honestly was the best trip I have EVER had, Namibia stands alone as a country of vast open spaces, abundance of wildlife and the most diverse terrain imaginable.

I have decided to concentrate this tale on my experiences of a visit to Cape Cross which we took in May 2001, when my partner and I were invited to stay with my e-pal whom I'd never met before in this stunning country which I had always wanted to visit, following a fascination born of tv documentaries and books. We were staying in Swakopmund,a German influenced seaside resort near the Skeleton coast, and I must write about that too soon as Swakopmund is worthy of its own entry.

I made it known that I wanted to see as much of the country as possible and never made secret the fact that I am crazy about all manner of wildlife, so when I was asked "do you want to see some seals?" I thought a nice trip along the coast to watch a few seals at play sounded a pleasant day out. "It's nice and near too" my new friends added and we all piled into the car, early one May morning and set off along the long straight (Oh so VERY long and straight) coast road with a salt surface, which leads North from Swakopmund, all the way to the Skeleton coast.

It was misty and hazy as we began our journey, as it so often is along this strip of the Atlantic where early morning fog lifts mid morning to reveal bright sunshine and blistering heat, tempered by playful cooling breezes which cause the local Nami
bians from further inland to mutter about freezing cold weather and don their quilted jackets, as we English, made of hardier stuff by necessity, plaster factor 30 all over and swig vast quantities of coke, sweating in our T-shirts and shorts.

My e-pal Heila behind the wheel had been asked to keep us informed of any points of interest and she pointed out a sand dune, then another followed by several more, then we switched over to observing the sea, another snatch of sea and a bit more sea! To say there is very little to see along this plain stretch of coast would be quite true, but that does it a serious injustice for if you can call being able to see for miles and miles, nothing but rolling sand in 3 directions and the deserted beaches of the edge of the skeleton coast, not much to see, then you haven't seen it for it was balm to our tired city eyes and the sound of the winds howling continuously across this vastness, music to our ears. What I find difficult to express is the sheer vastness of the terrain, it just goes on and on seemingly forever, its severity seldom broken by habitation or town. Yet not for one second does the view get boring as the scene shifts and colours change subtly and all the time you keep your eyes peeled for the rare sight of a lone jackal, scavenging for scraps of goodness knows what in the inhospitable desert scrub, suddenly the air is rent with beating wings and a huge flock of flamingoes fly overhead on their way South to Walvis Bay, a large snake waiting patiently by the roadside for small mice will often choose the very moment your vehicle heads over the horizon in a cloud of dust, to cross the road in a slither of scales and allow a brief glimpse of something poisonous and deadly but oh so beautiful, and sadly you can see his dead relatives, less lucky, flattened by tyres. Why? when they have thousands of miles of uninhabited desert to choose do they pick the only busy road for hundreds of miles to sunbathe on? When I
say busy road I mean one where you may pass another vehicle as frequently as once or twice an hour! That by Namibian rural standards is the equivalent of a traffic jam.

Eventually after about 2 hours of driving we are told "keep your eyes open we are coming to the town of Henties Bay" and we wait patiently and eventually see on our left, the seaward side, a grim little cluster of dusty shacks, this is Henties Bay, last town before the skeleton coast takes over and inhabited by fisherpeople and those working at the nearby salt mines and the odd hardy camper.

In a blink of the eye, Henties Bay is gone and we are back to sand watching, in the back of the car, my partner Brian is squashed in one corner, with Heilas nephew Vaughn snuggled in between the fridge and his Aunty Gundi, and they are playing I spy, a bit difficult as almost everything the eye can see begins with S ..... sand, sea, sun, sky, salt mountains ..... Oh I get it, Vaughn is teasing us waiting for the minute we see SEALS, I had almost forgotten what we had come to see. Oh, and yes I DID say fridge, no matter where we go in Namibia, whether its a day trip or longer we pile a fridge in, filled to the brim with cold drinks, beer and food, usually the cold remains of last nights braai (barbecue).

Hang on did I say this was a short trip? Well again, by Namibian standards anywhere which can be reached in less than 10 hours or so is a short journey, yet its still about an hour after passing through the metropolis of Henties Bay that we see a small sign pointing left, saying Cape Cross Seal reserve and we veer off the road in a flurry of sand and dust and drive through the gate,which is a gap between two huge rocks shaped loosely like seals and pull up in the small car park for visitors outside the small office, we unfold ourselves and a cry of delight goes up all round, and we all dash off together .... Have we spotted the seals? No, even more urgent and exciting is the
sight of a public toilet which we all make hasty use of! Thus ablutions taken care of we wait patiently while our Namibian friends go in to purchase admission tickets, as they are Namibians they get 25% discount off admission to any attraction, which, costing only N$10 each ( about £1 ) seems ridiculously cheap to us, but to them that 25p saving means quite a lot.

As we all walk the 500 metres or so towards the coast Brian and I are warned, "get a hanky ready, the smell is terrrrrible" But as we come over the rise and look down towards the sea, the approaching pong is forgotten as I struggle to work out what I am looking at, surely pollution can't be so bad here that the whole beach for miles in every direction is covered in black swirling oil??

But as my eyes adjust I am totally gobsmacked, there are cape fur seals everywhere, seals by the hundreds, no the thousands, well, God HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS, I am completely overwhelmed by the sight, I had been expecting to see a few dozen maybe more but this is unbelieveable, fantastic and as we get closer we realise that we can get really close and I begin to fiddle and fumble with my camera, hang on where are my binoculars ... ooops, dropped my hanky, click, click goes the camera and the smell? Brian is looking rather sick, Heila and Gundi are almost retching, Gundi muttering her favourite expression "Terrrrrible" Vaughn is pulling a face that only a 10 year old can pull and me, I'm loving it!!!! Yes I admit it, I'm weird alright, but it is an overpowering fishy, seal droppingy kind of smell and it is nature in the raw, not the sanitised nature you can view at the zoo but true Praise the Lord nature and it is everywhere and the smell is part of it. We approach a low sea wall of piled up rocks and gingerly lean on it and there, just 2 feet away are the first of, what are predicted to be ... half a million seals, many are relaxing, sleeping or sunbathing, though how on eart
h they can do that with the noise, it is deafening, thousands of seal voices raised so they can be heard above the crashing sea, honking and bleating and sounding like something between a donkey serenade and a sheep karaoke contest. Seals sleeping, seals strolling in pairs or alone, seals romping playfully ( they DO honest they do) and seals fighting for that prime spot of sand which is unoccupied, for empty gaps are at a premium, never have I seen such a crowded beach, not even in Benidorm at the peak holiday season.

The sea is wild and the surf is crashing on the many rocks which line the inlet of the bay, and the water is black, with thousands of seals diving, surfing, rolling and then coming out and up the rocks to join the ill mannered queue. Heads bobbing above the foam they are joined by thousands of sea birds hoping for a scrap of remaining fish from the seals lunch, you shade your eyes from the bright sun and look and look and no matter what direction you face there isn't one bit without these beautiful, fat but graceful creatures, with the loveliest faces seemingly capable of human expression.

But best of all, there are the little ones, the babies, Oh my, they are SOOOOO cute I want to take one home, as we walk along the sea wall, I keep spotting one which is even cuter than the last, maybe the little black one lying next to his big fat Momma with one flipper (paw? arm?) proudly patting her face and an adoring expression that is saying "look this is my Mum and isn't she just the best" and her expression of pride and tolerance says "he's mine and I'm so proud of him, but he can be a little bugger when you're trying to have a kip" Or possibly little fatty, a small dark brown chap only a few months old who is destimed to be a playground bully as he fights everyone who comes near his little patch of sand. A little further I spot Titch, tiny and grey he is all alone and he has the loudest voice of them a
ll as he honks and honks and peers around myopically and his penetrating voice clearly says "Mam, MAM where are you?" he is panicking, for if you lose your Mam in this busy supermarket those nice customer service people won't put out a tannoy message, but the panic is over, as he swivels his head to the left and right, Mum comes up behind, gives him a playful swipe and flubbers her big soft body down next to him, shaking her head and tutting as if to say, "I only went for a swim and I knew where you were all the time".

It is chaos, it is insanity, it is just wonderful to see and they go on and on and on as far as the eye can see, I am moved to tears by the sight and I am so happy I am floating on cloud 9. Fortunately Heila has her camcorder and we have this amazing trip on video to keep but even if we hadn't I would never forget it, it is one of those memories to dig out when you've had a bad day at the office and its guaranteed to put a smile on my weariest face.

There is a downside, apart from the smell, and if anyone is planning to go there I must warn them, at first I was so enthralled by all this wildlife I didn't notice, underneath the seals, as they moved around the sand, beneath them are bones, lots of bones, and if you look closely you can see hundreds of skulls, backbones and the odd dead seal, it is inevitable that in such a massive crush for space the odd few are crushed to death and at first I found this very upsetting but then I realised that the bones will eventually turn back to sand and the seals who perished will be part of this bounteous spot forever and it didn't seem so bad. However I was informed that once a year, and I'm afraid I'm not quite sure exactly when, late I think, maybe October or November there is a cull as there is a desperate need to control the vast quantity of seals who increase in numbers by the thousand every year or there just won't be room or food to susta
in those who have been coming for years, I believe they try to restrict the culling to old and injured animals, but I wouldn't want to visit during or after this dreadful time when the sea runs red for a while.

All too soon it was nearly time to go, we spent several hours there and hunger pangs were making us want to make tracks, you couldn't enjoy a picnic there for the smell would make everything taste like fish, or worse. I didn't want to leave, but we reluctantly turned back towards the car park and spotted a gap in the wall where several animals had ventured out and were lumbering towards a second toilet block! We approached cautiously as these are huge beasts and could easily turn aggressive as we had seen, as they fought each other, yet we got so close to one basking seal that the video of him shows the inside of his mouth as he yawned, he turned towards us and as we watched him he looked straight at us " Look" I said to Vaughn "He's saying goodbye" and to all our amusement and Vaughns delight this huge seal lifted his flipper and WAVED at us!!! Of course he was probably just cooling himself down but it was a final magical moment to take back with us as we left Cape Cross for our journey back to Swakopmund.

I really hope anyone reading this has enjoyed it, I enjoyed writing it and the memories it brought back, I have lots more I want to write about from this wonderful holiday but I will leave this here or it will be too long and as I am still quite a new Dooyooer I want to get it right. I was going to continue this by writing about the fun we had on the way back, but as this is so long I must leave it here and maybe my next op will be about "The booze up in the back of beyond" !!

08/10/01

Apologies to anyone who has read this twice by mistake.
After leaping up and down with glee having been awarded my first crown I watched and waited for reads of this op to increase and whe
n it became obvious it was not getting as many as some of my others I decided to change the title.
Hope it attracts a few more people to share my love of seals!

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