Wind Speed

by Erik Olsen on

Björn Dunkerbeck is seeking to capture one record he doesn’t have: the World Sailing Speed Record. But he’s close. Dunkerbeck recently hit 44.35 knots at the Walvis Bay Speed week in Namibia, a millenium best. He remains confident that he can break the 12-year World Sailing Speed Record of 46.52 knots (86.16 km/h).

That record was established in Australian in 1993 by a catamaran called Yellow Pages Endeavour. No one has touched it since. Now Dunkerbeck is determined to hand it back to windsurfers, who held the previous records. Eager to see how he does.

Top Adventure Lodges

by Erik Olsen on

From Austin, Texas to the Palmwag Rhino Camp in the Namib Desert in Namibia, Outside Magazine has listed its top ten adventure lodges around the globe. It’s a wonderfully comprehensive list, globally-speaking, and let me just say that one of my favorite places on earth is counted among them: Torres del Paine.

I know the lodge their talking about here, which is a fine place, but to be honest, the better one is further into the park called Pehoe. Just my opinion, but you can see the Torres themselves right through the window there. It is one of the most beautiful places anywhere.

Namibia’s Skeleton Coast

by Adrienne Wilson on

There is something eerie about the Skeleton Coast found in Namibia, that beckons me making me want to explore the region badly. Perhaps it’s the fact that the coast’s name refers to shipwrecks and whale bones that litter the beaches. It’s a safari unlike most seeing you won’t spot much game, but the beautiful dunes and desolate lands best seen at sunrise or sunset make up the missing animal kingdom. With the exception of the roar coming from sand grains playing in the wind, I imagine it to be some kind of peaceful. African Encounter has some great details about the region with packaged tours for those itching to know more.

Sandboarding Junkies

by Erik Olsen on

Here’s another article on the hot, literally, new sport of sandboarding, which is all the rage in Namibia where the dunes are tall and the safety regulations are, well, non-existent. One comapny running these trips is called Alter-Action. Created by Chris Jason and Beth Sarro in 1994, the company is the first professional sandboarding operation on the Namibian Coast. They say they have found the “perfect” sandboarding dune – a “star dune with six different faces and a towering height of 100 meters”. Sweet.

Besides supplying the equipment – including a helmet, gloves, elbow and knee pads – Alter Action provides transportation to and from local hotels, instruction, lunch and drinks for around $35 per person.

Sounds like a duneload of fun…but what about those nasty scrapes when you fall. Can you say raspberry?

Sand’s Up!

by Erik Olsen on

You gotta admit this is pretty damn cool. Dune surfing in Namibia. It is done in other places as well, but there is a fine allure to doing this in Africa. The sport, if that’s what we’re already calling it, is done standing up, or lying on your belly on a kind of boogie board, and one speeds down the sandy slope at speeds of up to 50 mph. This is something I’ve gotta try!