Luderitz in Namibia

CARANGO AMEL 54 #035
PETER and VICKY FORBES
Wed 11 Jan 2017 14:22
26:38.45S 015:09.44E

We sailed into Luderitz port in fine style on Tuesday 10th January after a good occasionally rough sail up from Cape Town almost exactly a 36 hour sail.

Luderitz proved to be a very interesting place. A German [Herr Luderitz] founded a settlement in this very inhospitable and arid coast line and paid to buy a strip of land South from Luderitz to the South African border at the Orange river estuary. The German government annexed it and the territory of South West Africa for its global expansion plan as a logistic base. There ensued a diamond rush after much unsuccessful exploration for any type of mineral. The Germans used the port in the Second War and at its conclusion the territory was handed to the South African government to administer. In about 1998 the UN forced the South Africans to hand the territory back to the local nationalists after much terrorism by the SWAPO guerillas.

Now the German architecture and churches have been preserved, the diamonds mines went bankrupt but there is still some diamond business.
 The diamond railway.

The local people are very friendly and we enjoyed our stay.

The team at the deserted diamond mining camp





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