Walvis Bay, Namibia to St Helena

On the morning of 15th February, we launched the dinghy and went ashore at Walvis Bay Yacht Club. Antoinette manages the yacht club affairs. She is friendly and efficient and goes out of her way to be helpful to visiting yachties. We had taken a bag of washing ashore intending to ask for the location of the nearest laundry. Antoinette said to leave it with her. Before 1600 the same day, we received a text message to say our laundry was washed, dried and ready to collect from the yacht club. Straight away we filled in forms for Customs. Antoinette drove us in her car to a port entrance. The officer was nearby and soon had us cleared in. Back at WBYC we met up with Wolfgang from Endo 2. Heike and Udo were on a desert safari and Wolfgang was waiting for his wife to arrive. We caught up with each other’s news and had lunch together.

The next day Jeremy went ashore for 145 litres of water. The yacht club has a long jetty with a water hose at the seaward end. This meant we did not have far to carry our water containers. We enjoyed hot showers at the yacht club. Antoinette drove us to Dunes Shopping Mall. We stocked up with lots of provisions. When we had finished, Antoinette came for us and drove us back to WBYC. In the afternoon, Woolfgang drove us to a garage in his hire car, where we filled our diesel cans and had a quick shop at Spar. We decided to leave for St Helena on Saturday. This meant clearing out the day before. We were at Antoinette’s office at 0830, filled in the required forms and she drove us to Immigration. Unfortunately, they were having a meeting so we had to wait for an hour before we could have our passports stamped and be cleared. Next was Customs where the formalities were done speedily. We paid WBYC 1000N$ (£50) for all their services. Moorings and tying alongside cost extra.

On Saturday 18th February we weighed anchor and motored out of the harbour, setting a course for St Helena, 1,223 miles away. We were at sea for 11 nights. Although we soon reached the SE Trade Wind belt, we found the Trades were not as dependable as we had hoped. Sometimes there was only 2-3 knots of wind. At other times there would be 16 or 17 knots. This required too many sail changes for only short periods of time, so we motored quite frequently. We were flying our ghoster or half spinnaker in light winds when quite suddenly, at midnight, the wind increased and we struggled to get the sail down. I was lowering the halyard and Jeremy was lying on his back on the bows gathering in the billowing sail, preventing it from filling and lifting him off the deck. I was quite happy not to repeat that performance. We had emailed St Helena Harbourmaster from Walvis Bay, so we were expected. As requested, we called St Helena Radio on VHF16 once we were within radio range. Then we called Port Control on VHF14 when we were a mile away and were directed to pick up any yellow mooring buoy.

To our surprise, there were 7 other visiting boats in the bay, three of them catamarans. One more catamaran arrived soon after us and we all took the water taxi together (£2.50 per person per return trip) to go ashore and see the officials. The order this time was Port Control, Immigration and Customs. All were in the same building close to the wharf. Immigration charged us £20 each. We will have to pay Port Control £35 and £2 per day for the mooring. There is a welcoming yacht club with a washing machine and showers. Water is available at the wharf. The most expensive thing is SIM card data from Sure - £16.50 for the SIM card and £20 for 350mb! WiFi costs £6 per hour, available at several local hostelries. We found out that the entry rules for Ascension Island have changed and a visa is now required. This has to be applied for online and can take 3 weeks. There are also strict requirements for medical insurance. We have decided, sadly, to give Ascension a miss and we will probably head for French Guayana as a stopover on our way to the Carribean.

Luderitz to Walvis Bay, Namibia

We spent four nights in the harbour at Luderitz, one windy night on anchor and three on a mooring looked after by Andy on behalf of the owner. We were contacted by Port Control at 0740 on Wednesday 8th February. Andy was on his trimaran and would meet us at a suitable mooring.

 We spoke to Andy on the VHF radio (channel 09). A bulk carrying manganese ship was being towed down the shipping channel in reverse. As long as we kept out of the shipping channel we could proceed to the mooring. Once secure, Andy came on board and waited with us to receive our appointment with the Health officer. Port Control contacted us with a time of 1000hrs at the Yacht Club. We launched our dinghy and went ashore at the allotted time. Half an hour later, Andy called Port Control to say we were still waiting for Health. An officer arrived soon afterwards. We filled in the required forms and were cleared within a few minutes. Next Andy took us to Immigration, just outside the port and a short walk away. The Immigration officer was not there. He was coming. We waited. After a while, an officer arrived, checked our forms, stamped our passports and cleared us in. Customs was in the same building at the back. The officer was there. Forms were filled in and we were cleared. Finally, we all walked through the port to Port Control, where the helpful officer only needed to see Jeremy’s passport and the boat registration document. We were free to explore the town. Andy charges 200N$(£10) per night for the mooring and his services. He will arrange tours and look after visiting yachts while their owners and crew go on safari. We thanked Andy for his help and set off to buy SIM cards from Telekom.

Jeremy had no trouble and was soon connected. Mine seemed to work and then was blocked. Four SIM cards later, my phone was connected as well. We had been in Telekom for an hour. We ate lunch at Essenzeits at the waterfront. Sal Darago could be seen in the distance on her mooring. There was one more payment to be made. We walked to the diamond company office and paid £2.50 per day for the use of their secure floating jetty. We shopped at Spar for provisions and also at the OK Supermarket. Everything was within walking distance. We had arranged to have showers at the yacht club the next morning. They were hot and most welcome. Our laundry was done at Joyce’s for 300N$ (£15). I had my hair cut at a salon at the waterfront. Meanwhile, Jeremy took our trolley and diesel cans to the garage and filled them. Then we filled our drinking water containers at a tap behind the yacht club and carried them to the dinghy. We went ashore again to the Portugese fishermen’s restaurant. The food was delicious. In the afternoon we went to Tourist Information and obtained maps for a historical walk around the town. Luderitz was built by Germans and their influence can still be seen in the architecture and street names.

As we were leaving early on Saturday morning we were able to clear out the day before. This time we only had to see Customs and Namport, as we were not leaving Namibia on our passage to Walvis Bay. We left Luderitz harbour on Saturday 11th February in foggy conditions. We decided not to stop at Boat Bay as it was only 12 miles away, and continued to Hottentot Bay, 25 miles further north. As we approached, we saw several crayfishing boats. One was anchored in the bay and three men were in the cockpit waving their arms up and down as if they were in distress. Then we realised they had long lines to crayfish pots radiating out in all directions. Jeremy shouted radio channel 16 and a safe route around the lines was advised.

We anchored in calm weather, not totally happy that the anchor was secure. We were surprised to see nine Landrovers/4x4 vehicles drive around the bay in the evening. That night the anchor alarm went off but all was well – just a change in the direction of the tide. The next day we motored in calm seas to Spencer Bay (obviously named by some distant relative!) Hundreds of sea lions shouted from the rocks as we approached and anchored. A little later Jeremy saw the Landrovers again. We were amazed as both bays are quite remote on the Skeleton Coast, with only desert behind them. On Monday 13th February, we weighed anchor at 0615 as dawn was breaking. A pod of dolphins escorted us out of the bay. The wind increased by the afternoon and we sailed with twin headsails poled out. In the evening we saw Venus and Saturn in the western sky and the Southern Cross behind us, along with thousands of other stars. We reached Pelican Point, the entrance to Walvis Bay, on Valentine’s Day at 1600.

At 1750 I tried calling Port Control three times and heard nothing in response. We continued towards the shipping channel and on towards the yacht club. As dusk began to fall, we realised a container port had been built on our route! Our chart did not have these changes. Fortunately, Jeremy was able to find Navionics on his phone through the Westerly Owners’ website. We followed the container port round with depths dipping to less than 3m and found our way into the yacht club mooring field. Jeremy spotted a gap and we anchored in 2.4m. The German yacht, Endo2, that had sailed with us from Reunion Island to Richard’s Bay, was tied to a jetty nearby.