The Beauty of Desolation

On Monday, October 26, Heather and I took the Town Hoppers shuttle to Swakamund where Frikkie met us and our tour with him began with a beach side stop on our way to Hientes Bay where he lives. We call it fog, Namibians call it mist.  The beach was very misty and windy but not cold, just windy and exhilarating.   I want to show you something, Frikkie says and drives his car right on the beach out to where a shipwreck is not far from the shore.  It is a trawler which came loose from its mooring, drifted away and was wrecked on the rocks not so long ago.  We returned the next day with Frikkie’s two dogs, Katrina and Itty, and spent several misty hours, the only sound the crash and roar of the waves and all round us the beauty of desolation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

That ship will be there a long time, Frikkie says, the cormorants have already made their nests in it.  Soon the barnacles will claim the sides as well.  The sea and the sea dwellers will take the ship over and make it their own.

You can see the cormorants nesting and roosting in the masts and rigging of the ship and the waves beating around it.

 

 

 

 

One seal pup looking out into the sea, perhaps watching for its mother who has gone foraging for food

 

 

 

 

 

Heather’s ancestors were sea-faring people, having traveled from the British Isles to New Zealand at the turn of the last century.  The sea calls to her; she grew up swimming in the waves of Southern California and many decades later she finds herself by the sea in Namibia, where the west Atlantic roars behind her.

 

 

The patterns made in sand by sea water, wind, the tide rising and falling, – never cease to amaze me with their muted beauty

 

 

This looks like a the wing of a very large sea bird, the white so feather like against a thousand shades of gray.

 

and here a beach butterfly from a clam shell.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The sky and sea in half a mussel shell.  The day was so misty yet all these colors turned up in the photo.

So ends our first adventure with Frikkie. von Solms.  Find out more about his tours at www.travelafricaandmore.com.

As you will see, his deep knowledge of his country, love of animals, and deep interest in providing a soul experience for his guests make tours with him unique and unforgettable.