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Write a User ReviewCape Fur Seal Colonies on the Skeleton Coast
This very remote wilderness area stretches out over 500km of coastline. Because of the nature of this harsh, barren desert environment, big game is scarce, but desert-adapted wildlife like gemsbok and springbok can be spotted. If you’re lucky, you might come across a jackal or brown hyena scavenging on a dead seal. Cape fur seals are abundant along this stretch of coast. They live in colonies and the most accessible one is at Cape Cross, south of the park’s border. I can watch these funny creatures for hours. There is never a dull moment with mothers suckling their babies, males fighting for territory and youngsters playing together. Don’t let the stench put you off; you get used to it after a while.
Smelly Seals and Skeletal Ships
The fog is a product of the cold Benguela Current mixing with warm air from the Namib desert and is a very important source of moisture for the region’s plants and animals. There are geckos who lick the dew from their eyes, beetles who climb sand dunes and collect moisture with their butts, and there are succulent plants (the African equivalent of cacti) that subsist on mist, and nothing else.
This regular swirl of vapor typically burns off once the day warms up, so you needn’t fear you’ll be robbed of the magical desert vistas this 500km-long coastal wilderness is rightly famous for.
My favorite spot in the park is the Cape Cross seal colony where I was assailed by the sights, sounds, and smells of 80,000 argumentative and exceptionally aromatic seals. The fishy fragrance was almost overwhelming. I saw jackals
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scavenging the tide line there, and I was treated to the spectacle of brown hyenas slinking through the colony in the hopes of grabbing a seal pup or two.Cape Cross is named for a stone crucifix that was originally erected in 1486 by a Portuguese explorer named Diogo Cão. His mission was to forge a sea route around Africa but alas Diogo is rumored to have died there and henceforth became known as the Skeleton Coast’s first seafaring victim. There would, of course, be hundreds more to come.
No one actually knows how or why Diogo expired on the Skeleton Coast (or even if he did). Some speculate he ate a dodgy seal and died of dysentery; others say he was overwhelmed by the smell.
Eerie Desolation & Profound Beauty
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you can smell and observe thousands of these boisterous, rather ill-tempered but fascinating creatures at close range.Skeleton Coast: Sand Dunes Meet the Sea
My pick for Africa’s most spectacular coastline, the Skeleton Coast combines the drama of perfectly sculpted sand dunes, crashing Atlantic breakers and wild seas, and unusual wildlife. The shipwrecks that line this coastline speak to nature’s raw power, which is always my most enduring memory of a visit here, and there’s no thrill quite like driving along a deserted beach between sand dunes and ocean. It is impossible to be unmoved by the view that greets you from the summit of a sand dune as an icy fog sweeps in off the Atlantic. And a chance glimpse of one of the last remaining desert lions, made famous in the National Geographic documentary Vanishing Kingdoms, is truly one of the most thrilling sights in nature. The slender-horned gemsbok or oryx, too, is an icon of these parts, and you might see brown hyenas lurking around the vast colonies of Cape fur seals. But perhaps more than anything else, it’s the sense out here of a wild and beautiful land remote from the world and its clamor that will live longest in the memory.
The Desert of Bones
There are some larger mammals here including rarely seen desert-adapted
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lions and elephants, and though you’d be lucky to see those, you won’t fail to see jackals pacing the high-tide line and quite probably the Hound of the Baskervilles-like brown hyenas.And then there’s the sea life. The cold waters that crash into the Skeleton Coast are some of the richest in the world. There are some huge colonies of Cape Fur Seals here and watching them play in the surf off Cape Cross is a highlight for everyone. Everyone bar surfers, that is. The cold waters and large number of seals attract another large creature of the oceans and this one has big sharp teeth and likes nothing better than a seal for dinner. Unfortunately, its favorite type of seal is a weak, slow-swimming, injured one and to a shark that’s exactly what most surfers look like. So, while most visitors love getting up close to the seals, for me and my surfing companions the arrival of seals on our chosen beach was generally greeted with nothing but fear of what might be following them!
Less Is More
For those in search of a taste of the wilderness, those looking to escape the crowds, the Skeleton Coast is perfect. Elephants are an unlikely inhabitant of this barren, desert-like corner of Namibia, and lion, rhino, cheetah and hyena are also present, though on my visit I saw little other than sand, sea and, of course, seals at the Cape Cross Seal Colony. This didn’t make for a disappointing trip though. For me, the Skeleton Coast’s appeal lies in its bleak beauty, sounds of the lapping Atlantic ocean and nighttime panoramas at full moon, when you can see almost as far as in the daylight hours. Truly spectacular.
Bleak Beauty
Further south, the Cape Cross Seal Colony is an extraordinary sight of up to 200,000 Cape seals huddled
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together jostling for space. It’s an extraordinary smell too, like rotting fish and guano, the kind of smell that sticks to you and needs washing off in the shower immediately after you’ve left the area.Coast of Ghost-Ships
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such as black oystercatcher joined seasonally by all manner of migrant waders from the northern hemisphere.The Empty Bleakness of the Desolate Skeleton Coast
The strong currents and swirling fogs of the Atlantic have long been a hazard to ships (and unlucky sailors) on the unusual coastal wilderness of the Skeleton Coast. However I find the dead-flat saltpans, barren stony plains and desolate beaches, featureless and uninspiring and there are better places in Namibia to experience the beauty of the Namib Desert. The only reasonably diverting place to visit is Cape Cross, where thousands of Cape fur seals unfathomably decide to sit on the same overcrowded rock. It’s a compelling sight, but I find the smell (of dead fish) somewhat challenges the senses. Turning inland the road becomes more interesting – the occasional gemsbok or kudu may be spotted in the scrubby low mountains, or an unusual desert welwitschia plant growing in a dry riverbed. After exiting the park in the east, the far more enticing Damaraland and Kaokoland awaits.
Lonely Wasteland
However, if you’re interested in remote landscapes and desert flora and fauna, you may find the Skeleton Coast rather intriguing. A series of dry river gorges score the park, with antelopes and elephants eking out a living here, along with small populations of desert-adapted lions. The bird population is surprisingly varied and the dunes are a good place to look for insects and small reptiles. I