When Frikkie sets up a tour, he balances the experiences with contrasts. One day you are in the desert climbing up sand dunes, the next day you are on a boat watching a whale breach in the open sea. He leads you in deeper as you go along. You have to trust and follow his lead. In Walvis Bay there is a group which offers 4 hour morning tours of the harbor and the open sea just beyond the harbor. So on this cold and misty morning we balance one foot in front of the other to cross the narrow wooden plank which leads to a jaunty ski-boat. These boats take 8 to 10 people and are small enough that you feel ocean spray and the thrill of the sea wind.
Our tour boat looked just like this one complete with human and avian passengers.
“Our Captain this morning, Crystal, is a petite young woman with freckles and a long blond braid down her back. She introduces us to the ship and each other and gives an idea of what we will be experiencing. This Walvis Bay Harbor Tour was a joyful one, due to Crystal’s obvious enthusiasm for her work and love of the marine animals and birds we met in the course of the day. Captain Crystal’s first mate was a pelican named Chuck.The folks who run Levo Tours out of Walvis Bay are dedicated to the marine wildlife and the quality of our experience reflected that. Bonds had been built with the birds and animals who live freely in their natural habitat but venture up close to humans. They are not tame or treated like pets, more like collaborators.
Heather decides to steal a kiss from Chuck! The art of kissing a pelican, she learned, includes avoiding the sharp little red tip on his beak!I was sitting at the back of the boat and all of a sudden a seal hopped up from the ocean and waddled his way down the center of the boat to Crystal who introduced him and talked to us about seal life. This bold boy hopped right onto the boat beside me. He was obviously used to being the center of attention!Our seal receives payment for his contribution to the tour. Notice Chuck supervising the process. He better not get more than I do!!
In the course of those four hours we saw dolphins leaping in the sea (moving much too fast for any photo taking), penguins swimming along slowly enough for the camera’s eye.
I love to be on a small boat with the salt fresh wind against my face. The sun peeked out and the ocean water showed all its colors that morning – from cloudy grey to deep olive green, to teal blue with purple undertones. I can’t get enough of all the colors of the sky and sea,changed every second by wind’s edge.We were served delicious refreshments including oysters, which Heather says “taste like the ocean. Eating an oyster is like eating the ocean!’ Frikkie and I are not such fans of oysters so Heather had our share of ocean to eat. A general toast was raised with small glasses of champagne.
we moved out into the open sea, and on our way back into the harbor….
we spot a WHALE! A humpbacked whale.
Crystal speculates that he may have come in to rub barnacles off his back on the sea floor. In any case we have plenty of time to enjoy his flipping and diving and surfacing. down he goes with a flip of his tail
in the afternoon, Frikkie continues the Walvis Bay tour – here is a flock of greater flamingos in a wetlands areaDesert and ocean meet – we spot a jackal who traveled a great distance from the desert to hunt for food on the beach – both jackals and hyenas regularly scavenge for food, such as dead seals. This is a mood image of a solitary life.Frikkie tells us about the salt industry in Walvis Bay. These are some of the salt flats of Walvis Bay – the muted pastels put me in a reflective mood. They remind me of a liquid patchwork quilt .And as the water dries up, the salt crystals begin to form – once again I meditate on the process of crystallization, the perfection of mineral replication as a metaphor of the creation of a many faceted human memory. A forever moment from the sea crystalized into images and words – taste of brine on the lips, the bark of seals, the cries of sea birds, the whoosh-splash of a whale, the pink of salt crystal and flamingos.
When Frikkie sets up a tour, he balances the experiences with contrasts. One day you are in the desert climbing up sand dunes, the next day you are on a boat watching a whale breach in the open sea. He leads you in deeper as you go along. You have to trust and follow his lead. In Walvis Bay there is a group which offers 4 hour morning tours of the harbor and the open sea just beyond the harbor. So on this cold and misty morning we balance one foot in front of the other to cross the narrow wooden plank which leads to a jaunty ski-boat. These boats take 8 to 10 people and are small enough that you feel ocean spray and the thrill of the sea wind. 
