Namibia
15 April 2026
Tax Day!! Luckily, my CPA was able to handle paying my taxes from my bank account, so I didn’t have to fly home to handle it! I had to get all my tax info together in January before our departure. Not fun.
So, Namibia! We arrived just as the sun came up. Namibia is the driest country south of the Sahara Desert, but it has been inhabited since prehistoric times. Some people like sand, I suppose, because that’s all that’s here. Where previous ports have been surrounded by mountains and trees, Walvis Bay, Namibia, is surrounded by huge sand dunes. The only trees I see are a few palm trees planted by locals in this deep port town of, Google says 100,000 people, but it looks more like a town of 10,000 to me.
Walvis Bay is the sea port for the whole country, so everything they import and export comes through here. Our bus driver said one of Namibia’s exports is uranium. They also export charcoal, though I don’t know where they get the wood to make the stuff.
It’s a desert, but the predicted high temperature today is 68F/20C. Fall is nice, this far south of the equator. Just, in the case of Namibia, dry dry dry. It was a German colony until South Africa took it over at the end of World War I. Namibia finally gained independence from South Africa in 1990, but the influence is still here. They speak English and, of course, they drive on the wrong side of the road. Until this trip, I’d never realized how much of the world drives on the left.
There were locals singing and dancing and playing a drum as we left the ship. Always a nice welcome to a new country. We first took a Cunard shuttle to the local shopping mall for essentials, then took a different Cunard shuttle to the waterfront, where there are some souvenir shops and restaurants.
We noticed that all the homes here are very nice and well maintained, though I have no idea where the people work. Other than the seaport, I didn’t see a lot going on here. But they seem prosperous enough.
We had very good fish and chips for lunch. David and I had the best wine we’ve had this trip. Linda had an orange soda. Our plates also had beautiful salads on them, but we didn’t ‘eat them. We’ve been advised to avoid drinking the local water, and avoid salads, since they are washed in the local water. Also, Linda said “no ice” in her soda, since ice is also local water, which may or may not be pure enough for our delicate GI systems.
I’ll be glad to get past this week, since all I’ve seen on Facebook this week is about the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. Not something you enjoy reading about as you sail the Atlantic!
Now it’s 6 days at sea, headed for Dakar, Senegal.
A Welcome to Namibia Video
We’re currently at sea in the Atlantic Ocean, still passing by Namibia on our starboard side. All these African countries are huge and take 2 or more days to sail by. I’ve not been able to enjoy being outside without a coat since we arrived in South Africa. Nice cool fall weather, but we’re heading for that evil equator again, with all the heat and humidity. We pass through 2 or 3 changes of season a week!
I haven’t mentioned the ship casino lately. I’m still occasionally playing the slot machines on the same $30 with which I started, still a little bit ahead. I’ve developed a new game. I get a glass of wine when I enter the casino, and take a little sip each time I spin a winner on the machine. I quit when the glass is empty. It works out to be about right, as far as time spent, and adds a little fun to the game. Sort of like the drinking game John Allen French told me about (though legally I must say that it’s illegal to have open alcohol in a car). In the game, you take a drink each time you pass a Dollar General.
Today I attended lectures…OK, I should really call them talks, we’re not being lectured to. So I attended a talk by a British special forces guy, about my age but he could twist me up like a pretzel. He was in the boating service, meaning he was the equivalent of a US Navy Seal. He told about how he ended up in special forces, and how hard it was. Turns out he was the youngest person ever to become one of their “seals.” In coming lectures he has many adventures to share with us.
Another talk was by a literary expert who told us about the life and writings of Oscar Wilde, the great wit who she called “The World’s First Celebrity.” Very entertaining talk about a remarkable mind.
17 April 2026
Well, it has happened. “Gastrointestinal distress” has broken out on the ship. QM2 is fairly insistent about cleanliness, but “it” appeared a couple of days after we left Cape Town, or it might have come aboard in Namibia. Luckily, the Bowlins and I are particularly careful, we don’t drink the local water or eat salads or anything else uncooked and washed in local water, and so far no problems. I carry hand sanitizer with me at all times, and use it after using salt/pepper shakers or after touching anything else, like serving spoons in the buffet, door handles and handrails and elevator buttons. Luckily, my balance is still pretty good, so I usually don’t have to touch handrails.
The ship’s hallway floors are now full of used room service trays. Where my hall used to have 1 or 2 used trays placed outside people’s cabins, now there are 7 or 8. It’s either people who have been to the medical center and have been told to stay in their rooms until they’re well, or people who are self-quarantining. Luckily, GI issues usually go away in 2 or 3 days, vs a week or two required if they had COVID. I’ve noticed a lot more people wearing masks around the ship, which has nothing much to do with a GI virus, except, I suppose, to serve as a reminder to not touch ones face with dirty hands.
Generally, each time new people come aboard, the buffet staff spoons food onto your plate for the first couple of days, so any sickness brought aboard has time to show itself, then they let us serve ourselves. But now I fear we’ll have to point at what we want and they’ll serve us for the next week. That’s bad for me, because they usually spoon too much onto my plate, and I feel obligated to not waste it!
The salt/pepper shakers and paper menus have disappeared from around the ship. I guess staff will come apply condiments if asked, but I’m just doing without. I went to the 10:00 “talk” this morning and a sign on the door said it is cancelled due to illness. That can only mean that the lecturer has “it.” Still, MUCH better than a respiratory illness. That would shut down pretty much everything on the ship.
The Bowlins continue to spend every day in their art classes while I attend several mostly-interesting lectures daily.
18 April 2026
Welcome to Paris! (Not really.) As I mentioned earlier, we’re currently under extra-vigilant sanitation rules due to some gastrointestinal “issues” on board since we left South Africa. I noticed a new one today: all the public bathroom doors are now locked open, so we don’t have to touch a doorknob to enter or leave. Now it’s just like Paris, where they have men’s urinals on the sidewalks, with just knees to chest hidden from the public. As you pass the men’s toilets on the ship now, you can, if you wish, look straight in at men standing at the urinal, with just the short little partitions the better urinals offer between men, to give a little privacy. And women think THEY have it rough, with never enough stalls to meet demand.
As also mentioned earlier, I’ve developed a habit of going to Sir Samuel’s, the ship’s beautiful coffee shop, for a really good black coffee every morning after breakfast. Flavored coffees are nice, but if you really like coffee, a GOOD cup of black, unsweetened coffee is a real treat.
I’m amazed at the people who come in, pay $5 for a cup of coffee, cappuccino, whatever, the waiter brings it to them, and it just sits there, untouched for several minutes, while the people act like they’re not in the slightest interested in drinking it.
Finally, they’ll take a single sip, set it aside, and it sets and gets cold another 5 minutes while they stare off into the distance and ignore it. I know, I know, they’re savoring the moment, waiting for it to cool, whatever. I just can’t do it that way. When my coffee comes, I pick it up and slurp a sip. Am I the only one who knows how to slurp hot beverages? The cup then never leaves my hand until it’s empty! I’m there to enjoy the coffee. The overall experience is just a bonus. Ah well, they can do it wrong if they want to.
While I was sitting this morning in the lobby, waiting for the coffee shop to open at 8:00, I noticed that one of the shops onboard sells used designer purses and similar stuff! That makes sense. I’m sure women who can afford expensive purses take care of them and wouldn’t be seen in public with them if they weren’t in good condition. So used designer purses probably look like new. I just didn’t imagine they’d sell used items on Queen Mary 2.
I’ve realized that I’ve been ignoring all the shops on board, since I have no interest in them. I’ve decided to do a couple of videos to show them, for those who DO like shops. I’m amazed when I pass by them. I almost never see anybody in them, except the sales clerk, who stands there all day, waiting for one or two browsers. I’m guessing their markup is so high, it probably only takes a couple of sales/week to make having these shops worth the space they take up. Cunard has been doing this a LONG time, and I know they don’t do things that lose them money.
All this being said, I’ll report that one day I arrived early for a lecture in one of the two 500-seat theaters on the ship, and there was a jewelry talk going on. The sales lady from one of the ship’s jewelry stores was talking about, and showing slides of, their jewelry, and having drawings for gift certificates from her shop. The room was packed with women, and a few men forced to come along, no doubt to see the value and importance of sparkly stones.
Queen Mary 2 Shopping Video
More Queen Mary 2 Video
21 April 2026
The last of our six days at sea between Namibia and Senegal. We arrive Dakar tomorrow. A Cunard ship has never stopped in Dakar before, and we have been warned to expect to see extreme poverty, and to leave jewelry and valuables on the ship!
The Bowlins and I continue to be healthy and happy, though the ship remains under enhanced disinfection practices, which just means they’re asking people to wash hands with soap and hot water before entering the buffet, rather than just using hand sanitizer, and they continue to spoon the food onto our plates, rather than us serving ourselves. They’re also constantly washing hand rails, door knobs, and elevator buttons with buckets of disinfectant.
It’s worth the trouble to keep a healthy ship, though I’ve seen the same bejeweled British woman pitch fits on successive days about the “unnecessary precautions.” And I mean shouting the worst foul language, though I’m aware that those words don’t carry the impact in Britain like they do in the US. That being said, I’ve also heard that the word “bloody,” which seems mild to Americans, is considered fairly strong language in England.
The complainer is just spouting off in general. I think if she was directly attacking the staff verbally, security would do something. I’d like to see her thrown in the brig. Her latest tirade was about how ridiculous the precautions are, since the kitchen staff could be infected. I want to ask her which she thinks is worse, only the kitchen staff handling our food, or the staff cooking it then each of us using the same serving spoons that 1000 other people have just handled.
Linda and I enjoyed a “who done it” radio show in the theater yesterday, meaning that they had 7 readers on stage at microphones, reading the different parts of the play like it was a radio show of old. They were in costume for their characters, and it was quite fun. David, who doesn’t put up with foolishness, didn’t care for it and left early, no doubt for a nice nap.
We’re always, rightly, worrying about children being on their handheld devices all the time. But it’s amazing to look around the auditoriums on the ship. 500 people in the room, 90% are over age 70, and 95% are piddling on their handheld devices before the lecture begins.