And so we start

We made it! Despite a myriad of routes and connections through a variety of airports in the US and Africa we have all arrived in Walvis Bay on time. I landed yesterday afternoon after sitting around Tambo airport in Johannesburg for a few hours. It was there that I realized something interesting. I was watching the monitor in the lounge to make sure that I didn't miss the boarding call. I didn't want to miss the only flight to Walvis of the day, and they tend to be pretty rigorous about boarding at least 30 minutes ahead of time because for short flights they use shuttle buses to get you to the plane. Sitting daydreaming it suddenly dawned on me. They only posted the flights 30 minutes before departure. The TV screen wasn't big enough or sophisticated enough to show more than about a dozen flights. So in essence if you were there long enough to see your boarding call on the monitor you were too late. The shuttle had already gone. I made it on time

The flight to Walvis was uneventful but flying across Botswana and Namibia you get a sense of how big the distances are and how little there is to fill them. Just miles and miles of nothing. Boulders and rocks are the scenic interruptions.

As I was coming through passport control I discovered that Alan had been on my flight, and there to greet us were the shining countenances of Peter and Johnnie. Peter rented a minibus to so we had wheels big enough to hold us and our stuff. So the good news was that all of us made it in one piece.







The bad news was that our trusty steamship, the Arcadia Highway, was arriving on time, Africa time, exactly 28 hours late. That means that it was berthing at aboput 9 p.m. Monday. No trucks until Tuesday. We also tried to get permits to allow us into the docks so that we could film the trucks as they disembarked with headlights wide open. looking around their new land. Unfortunately we were non grata, and so we decided to go back to Swakopmund, and get settled.

On the way we stopped at a huge sand dune on the side of the road. There was a flat road about 300 yards long leading up to the base, but the attraction was that there were about 20 people parasailing off the dune. The wind blows from offshore onto the dune, and if you know what you are doing, all you have to do is unfurl yur sail and the wind will pick you up, take you to the top of the hill, and then you glide back down, turn around and do the same thing all over again. Incredibly tranquil and beautiful. The folks who knew how to do it were jsut hanging out gliding in huge sweeping arcs across the dune and then back up to the top.Matt Lauer missed out on this one.

The next critical stop before the hotel was the butcher shop to stock up on biltong. ( For those of you who are all enough educated to not know what that its, it is a staple of southern African life, a spiced dried meat that you can eat liced, or just rip off the main piece with your teeth. Dentists love it). I bought some springbok and some kudu, and the we we were ready to check in.





We stayed at a really quaint little hotel, the Hotel Eberwein,  with the nickname Villa Hille, a vestige of German colonial days. I guess I am lucky because I didn't have to argue about who shared with those of us who snore. I got a single.

Before we arrived the other guys had gone to the docks  to check on the progress of the ship and our treasure. While there was very little in the way of actual information, they did come to know the seaman's mission. I would bet dollars to donuts that none of this crew had ever been into a seaman's mission before. They are typically run by a church organization, and provide some creature comforts like clean accommodation, hot food and a little entertainment like pool and darts to sailors in port for a few days (fewer and fewer of those as the technology of marine transportation changes).They stumbled upon an interesting art source. There were a team of painters doing large murals on some of the walls of buildings near the docks.

They also got to know the security team at the dock gate, who function as policemen, firefighters and EMS people.Nothing like having a multitasker in an emergency. Who needs specialization anyway. Their fearless leader is a man by the name of Rassie who took a shine to us because of what we are doing







We went for dinner to a restaurant built from the remains of an old tug. Guess what it is called - The Tug. Its attached to a jetty and you overlook the waves breaking on the beach. It was so good that the guys went there the night before also.Then back to the hotel and an early night.