Day 3, West Africa Cruise – At Sea, Off the Coast of Namibia

Latitude: 28° 30.4763’ S
Longitude: 15° 34.7887’ E

A day at sea for a passenger vessel is a challenge for the crew. You have a group of people who are stuck in a small space with nothing to do. There is no television. Internet and telephone connectivity is either non-existent or severely limited.

On larger cruise ships, they usually try to fill time with frivolous things like bingo, movies and shopping for cheesy art and jewelry. The Expedition, thankfully, fills time with more informative and intellectual pursuits.

Today, for example, there was a lecture on the German colonial involvement in Namibia and the Namibian resistance. Another lecture which was an introduction to photography and finally an even lecture on African cosmology, including a nighttime walk on the deck of the ship to look at the stars (with the ships lights turned off).

Future lectures include native birds, more history, geology more history, more photography and more wildlife.

What is wonderful isn’t just the fact that these lectures are offered, but that almost all of the passengers are willing to show up to every single one.

The ship has a library but you won’t find any trashy novels here. The shelves are stocked with travel guidebooks, history books and other tomes covering subjects which are relevant to where the Expedition usually sails: the polar regions.

This perhaps the biggest reason I enjoy sailing on the Expedition.

This is my first update from on board the ship. Uploading images is going to be….challenging. I can do basic text and I can load Gmail and Facebook with some difficulty, but the bandwidth for images isn’t stellar. I’ll see what I can do and I’ll look for wifi when we are in port. I think I’ll have to develop a workflow where I move photos from my iPhone to my laptop and upload from there. Having two devices online at the same time just isn’t going to happen.

Tomorrow we arrive in Luderitz, which is the stop I’ve been most excited about from a photography standpoint. The images I’ve seen of the abandoned mining town are amazing. I’m also hoping to photograph a welwitschia plant, which might be the coolest plant in the world. They can over 1,000 years and and only have 2 leaves!

4 thoughts on “Day 3, West Africa Cruise – At Sea, Off the Coast of Namibia”

  1. I recently heard of this plant! Pretty interesting, as I bet the lectures and information on the ship is

  2. In 1970 my family moved to NZ from the UK – we left Southampton and the first stop was Cape Town – and there was an awful lot of sea days – and this was a passenger ship not a cruise – no activities that I remember except crossing the line. And the pool was empty!

  3. Who would have not enjoyed an expedition with all that activities in the ship? Wow! That’s nice. I was hoping I can be a passenger in that ship soon. ;)

  4. Man, with the lack of electronics, it actually sounds like heaven!( NO CONTACT!)
    This has been great following you on this voyage.
    I am assuming you learned a lot from the Photography lecture!!

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