At Sea
Following a couple busy days in Cape Town, we sailed early last night and enjoyed a star-filled night at sea. It seemed everyone was ready for a relaxing day at sea aboard National Geographic Explorer. We awoke to a beautiful, cloudless, but slightly hazy morning with calm seas and a handful of seabirds checking us out, including various albatrosses, petrels, shearwaters, storm-petrels, gannets, and skuas. However, we were somewhat surprised, but pleased to see several South African fur seals cavorting so far out of sight of land. Our track throughout the day was north-northwesterly within the cold, rich Benguela Current that flows northward along the coastline of southwestern Africa. We generally stayed about 50 nautical miles offshore, which was a good thing as we paralleled the dangerous Skeleton Coast, the infamous graveyard of many a ship. Figure A shows our proposed track about to cross the seaward border separating South Africa and Namibia.
This was the first day of what is to be an epic voyage exploring the entire length of the western coastline of the African continent. The scope of this voyage is tremendous, considering the fact that Africa is the second largest continent in the world (after Asia). It is more than three times the size of the U.S.A. Africa is essentially centered on the Equator, stretching 69° in latitude (about 4,700 miles) and 65° in longitude (about 4,450 miles). At the Equator, it measures only 33° in longitude (about 2,250 miles) wide. Africa is essentially an island in that it is disconnected from all other land masses apart from a tiny link to Asia along the eastern edge of Sinai. Even so, it is extremely compact and has no great enclosed gulfs or deep embayments. This fact explains why Africa has the shortest coastline of all the continents, which limits considerably the number of potential landing sites we can use.
We are now sailing in one of the latitudinal belts that includes great deserts. This phenomenon results from a nearly continuous subsidence of dry air that circles the Southern Hemisphere at about 30° latitude, thus creating high pressure regions over land. The great Namib Desert, which lies off our starboard beam, was created long ago by this process (the Namib Desert is the oldest desert ecosystem in the world). This explains the haziness aspect to the sky we experienced today, caused by airborne dust stirred up by winds over the desert. If one were to circle the globe in this latitudinal zone, one would also encounter the Atacama Desert of South America and the Australian Desert. A similar phenomenon occurs in the Northern Hemisphere, which creates the Sahara, Arabian, Gobi, and Sonoran deserts.
A day at sea gave expedition leader Lisa Trotter a chance to talk about our plans for the upcoming voyage, discuss the partnership between Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic Society, and acquaint everyone with the staff members before we began presentations aimed at preparing us for the adventurous days ahead. Our photography experts were on hand in the late morning to discuss various aspects and techniques regarding cameras. The pleasant conditions at midday allowed the galley staff to offer an optional lunch service on the aft deck (Figure B). In the early afternoon, Richard White introduced us to the seabirds of Western Africa we had already seen today and hope to see in future days. A little later, Doc Mendonsa helped us learn how best to interact with different African cultures. We finished the day with a cocktail; party hosted by captain Oliver Kruess, which was followed by our Welcome Dinner, and then some more star-gazing on the aft deck.
