Don & Kully's World Cruise on Viking Neptune

Today we were scheduled to visit Lüderitz, Namibia. However, we were unable to leave Cape Town as scheduled on the evening of 10 April because of high winds making it unsafe for the ship to leave the port. Cruise ships are tall with thousands of square feet of surface area that acts as a big sail in a cross wind. Winds in the Cape Town harbor were gusting at over 30 knots making it impossible to move away from the pier as scheduled, so we ended up spending all day yesterday sitting in port waiting for the weather conditions to change. Adding insult to injury, South African immigration had already processed all of us as “departed” and wouldn’t allow us to leave the ship. Fortunately, the winds settled down and we departed around midnight last night but will have to skip Lüderitz.

A little bit about Lüderitz. Namibia is a former German colony that is primarily desert. The town itself is known for German colonial architecture including some Art Nouveau work and for wildlife including seals, penguins, flamingos and ostriches. It is also home to a museum and lies at the end of the decommissioned railway line to Keetmanshoop. The town boomed in the early 1900’s when diamonds were discovered nearby. Today around 16,000 people inhabit this isolated little town.

Our next scheduled port of call is tomorrow in Walvis Bay, Namibia.