Posts for April, 2026

As mentioned in yesterdays post, Capetown was a changeover point from one cruise to the next. It was also a point at which there was a chnage over for a lot of the staff. We noticed this last night at dinner with a lot of new faces amongst the restaurant staff. So today the Captain (who has not changed) held a cocktail party to introduce the new members of his senior staff.

This morning we pulled into the port of Luderitz, a small town or village, in southern Namibia and at the southern end of the Namibian Desert which is called The Namib. The country of Namibia is famous for this coastal desert, which is the oldest desert in the world, and which runs the full length of the Namibian coast, starting in South Africa and running north into Angola. As you can see from the photos below the desert is a mix of sand and stone and is very dry getting on average about 15mm of rain per year.

This morning we pulled into the harbor of a town called Walvis Bay which is the main sea port for Namibia. It has a long history of contact with Europeans dating back to 1485 when nearby Cape Cross was visited by Diogo Cao and 1487 when Bartolomeu Dias anchored in Walvis Bay itself. Interestingly while Walvis Bay is one of the few places on the Namibian coast that provides good anchorage for ships it has no natural water supply even today. That handicap explains the near by town of Swakopmund which sits at the mouth of the similarly named Swakopmund River and hence has a water supply but does not have any form of protected acnhorage for ships. So the two towns are somewhat symbiotic. Swakopmund provides the water and Walvis Bay provides a lifeline to the rest of the world. Incidentally the names reflect their earlier colonial history with Walvis Bay being English and Swakopmund being German. Tourism is the main business of both towns.s

We noticed a large display of Easter chocolates in one of the main lounges today.

Dinner in the Red Ginger Restaurant.

I have not mentioned before that the ship is taking precautions to reduce the risk of piracy. As night approaches all cabin curtains are closed, and various external lights are turned off to make the ship less visible. This seems to be a function of being off the West Coast of Africa. I might say it was a bit of a surprise when we got a nice printed note to tell us this was going to happen.

Today we had a tour of São Tomé which is the capital and largest city of the island and Central African country of São Tomé and Principe. Here is a link to a wikipedia page about the country click here. Like many West African countries the first European occupants of the island were Portuguese in about 1470 and eventually replaced by Dutch and then English. The Portuguese brought slaves to the islands from nearby African mainland countries and that is the source of todays population. As you can see throughout the photos below fishing is an important sourcce of food, while cocoa and chocolate are a major export. Portuguese is the primary language and most of the population are nominally Catholic although various belief systems such as voodoo were brought to the islands by the slaves. We were "entertained" by two voodoo-style dances today, though it was hard to tell the extent to which these were anything more than tourist entertainment.

A. day at sea.

Today we docked at the port of Cotonou in the country of Benin. There is a lot that could be said about Benin as it played a noteable role in the Transatlantic slave trade, both as a source of slaves with local rulers selling slaves to Europeans, as a location of one of West Africas Gate of No Return and as a departurre point for slave ships from the Benin coast near the town of Whydah. In addition Benin is a country where the practice of Voodoo is very active. But rather than give you a lecture on these topics I will provide some wikipedia links on these subjects for those that are interested; Cotonou Benin Voodoo Whydah

Our excursion today was a long bus ride east (from the port in Sekondi-Takorada) along the coast to the towns/cities of Cape Coast and Elmina where we visited in turn Cape Coast Castle and Elmina Castle. These two structures were built by European colonial powers as part of their search for riches on the African coast and eventually became essential facilities supporting the Atlantic slave trade. At both of these places we were able to see where slaves were kept before being shipped to the New World and at Cape Coast Castle we saw one of the original Gate of No Return.

Another day another country, this time The Ivory Coast, or officially The Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, and another bus ride. We docked this morning in the city of Abidjan, to find a large port with many cargo ships and a sizeable container handling facility. We also found 9 green tour buses waiting for us, a bunch of semi-trailers waiting for a bulk carrier ship to unload and their drivers variously sleeping or resting on the ground near their trucks. Quite a spectacular sight.

A day at sea.

At sea.

At sea.

The Gambia, as it is called, (wiki entry click here) is an unlikely country, as it occupies a thin strip of land each side of The Gambia River from its mouth at the Atlantic Ocean deep into the East Coast of Africa forming a narrow intrusion into the country of Senegal. It is immediately evident that it is a poor country and depending on your information source its major source of foreign income is peanuts and the tourist trade. Given the evident lack of wealth we were surprised to see that the streets were relatively clear of rubbish. Note the photo of the man with a donkey cart. There are many of these combinations of man-cart-donkey(s) and they are the first line of defence, they pick up the rubbish in the streets and from piles of rubbish made by home owners and business owners. It is then consolidated into special rubbish trucks.

Today we had a bus tour of the city of Dakar, a place made famous in western countries, by the Paris-Dakar rally. But sadly for a petrol head like myself we saw almost nothing that reflected the days of the rally. Why the "almost" ? Like all the previous places we have visited on this trip Dakar has uncountable hordes of motorcycles but all with small engines and designed as city transport. But in Dakar I caught glimpses of a small number of high powered rally style bikes, the rider of one of these even pulled a wheelie in a crowded street while crossing an intersection; just for the benefit of us tourists you understand.

Today was supposed to be a celebration of my 77th birthday, but alas, I ate something at lunch so spent the afternoon in bed trying to recover. Hence I did not really appreciate the nice chocolate birthday cake the ships galley provided and the celebratory dinner that Nina had arranged was cancelled.

I spent the day still recovering from yesterdays food poisoning episode so did not participate in todays tour. The ship docked at Port Grande in the city of Mindelo on the island of San Vincente one of 10 volcanic islands that make up the country of Cape Verde, located in the central Atlantic Ocean. From Nina's description the town still had an African feel, with lots of dark skinned people wearing wonderful brightly coloured clothes. There was a general more prosperous feel probably coming from the lack of rubbish and better maintained buildings and roadways. A wonderful example of the effort that the island community has put into building things is the top 5 km section of the road to Mount Verde at over 2500ft. This road is made of hand laid flat stones, providing a relative flat driving surface and is in good conditions. However as a passenger trying to take photos from the bus is was extremely bumpy. We could not find out why this construction technique was used as a hot-mix road would have been a lot less work. See the photo labelled "Rocky Road".

First day out from Cape Verde.

A day at sea.

This morning we docked in the city of Arrecife which is the capital of the Island of Lanzarote. Lanzarote is the most northern island of the Canary Islands, which is Spanish territory and therefore part of Europe. Boy that was a mouth full.

This morning we docked in the Moroccan town of Agadir, the last stop before Lisbon on Friday. Again we find our selves in a working port so ships are loading and unloading around us and the shore, immediately nearby is given over to stacked containers.