Lüderitz

Friday night heading from Walvis Bay to Lüderitz was easily the roughest time we’ve yet had on the sea. Ken, a fellow ATW passenger, said he “caught air” while lying in bed. I believe it, as we were really riding up and crashing down the swells. I never felt seasick, but sleeping was impossible. Well, for us anyway; the boys slept right through it all. Fortunately we pulled into Lüdertiz before 7:00.

We had no real plan for the day beyond walking around the town. So we had breakfast and set out, with the Felsenkirche as our destination. This is a church up on the top of the hill that the town is built on, easily visible from pretty much anywhere in the area. We made it up there and chatted a bit with the attendant who filled us in on some of the history.

The town is small, so the walk to the church was hardly enough. To extend it we walked out to Shark Island, which is really a peninsula that forms one side of the bay. During apartheid times this housed a prison, and the story we heard was that the name Shark Island was adopted to discourage escape attempts via the sea. The peninsula now has a number of high-end homes and lodgings. At the very end there is a campground that had excellent views of both sides of the peninsula.

The walk back to the ship gave us enough exercise, so we called it there and spent the afternoon relaxing and finishing up the ship model we’d built for the competition. We did learn later that due to the weather – presumably the fact that much of the pool has sloshed out – the “sea trials” portion of the judging will not be taking place and the title will be awarded based on appearance and the “facts” you submit about your entry.Read more