On sailor forums everywhere, people planning their future sailing trips want to know:

“How do you get internet at sea?”

Far out to sea, unless you are a billionaire, forget it. Internet domes run somewhere around several thousand for the infrastructure and tens of thousands per month to support a normal American Internet diet. We use an Iridium Sat Phone will bring in text only email and weather forecasting. If you set up a social media account you might be able to post a short text or one photograph to Facebook, but that’s it.

"What about Starlink?" everyone wants to know.

Maybe someday. Maybe some places, right now. But, in the remote locations we’ve been sailing this year, it has not been an option. And so, what do we do for internet - especially now that I am moonlighting as a lawyer?

Finding internet is part of the adventure.

The hunt for internet, much like finding groceries, spare boat parts, or the best place to do laundry puts us more in touch with the places we visit. It's a little sliver of everyday life for both us and the people who live there. We all need groceries. We all need a hardware store and to do our laundry. And apparently, we all need internet.

Upon arrival in Namibia, we started looking for internet. After meeting with health, immigration, customs, and the port captain, we made our way to the internet store. We pushed through a door suffering from a condition that caused ear splitting screeching. There, we found a tidy, wide open office with a receptionist at the desk to help us. We explained our needs and she made her recommendations. In this instance, we found the local Telecom Namibia SIM Card with 50GB of data for $12.00US to be the best deal, assuming it had reasonable service coverage. 

While we were waiting for her to program our cards into our phones, another local man entered the shop his two-year old daughter by the hand. She saw us and immediately hid behind her Dad's legs. "Don't be shy, say hello," he told her.

Andrew squatted to her height, “Hello, what is your name? My name is Andrew."

“Miriam,” she whispered as she wrapped herself around the furthest side of a right knee.

“Nice to meet you, Miriam." Andrew held his hand out for a shake. Miriam looked doubtfully at him for a moment than touches his hand like she's testing to see if it might be on fire.

Andrew straightened up and says, “Oh, she's cute."

Before long, Andrew and Miriam’s father (Mattais) are in conversation about where we are from and how we got to Namibia. Mattias and Miriam aren't from Luderitz, but originally from a village in the North. They currently live in the capital city, Windoek, but Luderitz is the only place Mattias can renew his large truck driving license. While here, he ran out of SIM data and popped in to buy a bit more.

“I've never met anyone sailing around the world before." He marveled. “Where do you stay while you are visiting?” This is a common question. There is a general consensus among land-people that sailors sail into port and then find hotels or other accommodations on land. But no, our ships are our homes.

"You sleep on your boat? And cook...and everything? All the time?”

Yep.

“Would you like to come out and see? Come over for tea or coffee." Andrew said. And, this is how Mattias found himself aboard S/V Sonrisa taking the full tour one sunny day in Luderitz.

Mattias does about five different jobs. Not only does he drive large trucks, but he has worked in tourism (before Covid shut everything down), transcribes dictation for professors at the local university, he provides photography for local weddings, and he sometimes submits interviews or stories of interest for the Windoek newspaper. So, when he came aboard Sonrisa, he had no shortage of questions. While most people ask us "how did in the world did you get here?" Mattais took us all the way back to our childhood searching for the genetic deviation that sent us out to sea.

He told us all about his own childhood and life in Namibia as well, and we really enjoyed spending some time with him. We felt we’d made a friend.

“If you end up traveling North, let me know! Maybe we can see each other again." He said as Andrew delivered him back to land.

We promised we would call if we made it that far North, but we didn’t think we’d actually made it that far north or that far inland. Little did we know, the Luderitz Crayfish Festival was about to change the course of our destiny.

Internet Interrupted by the Crayfish FEstival

Prior to said Crayfish Festival, our internet was working like a charm. Each morning, I'd wake up aboard Sonrisa click on my laptop and start working away. But, the day before the Crayfish festival, Namibians swarmed from far and wide to join us for the party. Military ships rolled in to a welcome of colorful smoke bombs set ashore.

Soon, it became clear the addition of a few hundred extra festival-traveling Namibians was straining the system. I gave up my attempt at brief writing for the day and went out to watch the festive atmosphere building up around a line of tents

Crayfish = Namibia’s version of a lobster. With the crayfish season drawing to a close, the locals were throwing a big seafood party on the wharf, serving shellfish paella, lobster grilled over a braai and doused in butter, fishcakes, oysters, mussels, and of course, beer. They also served inland specialties including rehydrated spinach and maupani.

Mattais had already given us some coaching on the maupani the day he visited Sonrisa. He explained they are caterpillars that hang from a maupani tree, and they are a staple part of the Namibian tribes’ diet. "They are tasty! We love them," Mattais explained. Andrew promised he would try one if he came upon the opportunity. Not one to shirk a promise, Andrew bellied right up to the Maupani tent and gave it the old “College Try”.

"Not horrible," Andrew reported as he chewed and grimaced. Amy from Florence tried as well, and she also said “not bad” while turning a lighter shade of pale and giving a strong gulp.

He then washed it down with local millet-based beer.

We liked the lobster doused in better, I must say.

Once the festival was over, I thought for sure the internet would go back to normal. But, it did not. Each morning, I woke to find it inoperable aboard Sonrisa. I began making the trek into town to use the wifi at a coffee shop until it closed at 4 p.m. Then, the only place in town to find my evening wifi was the yacht club. Each time I clicked “un-mute” to make a comment on a conference call, I shouted over the din of political debates among be-overalled fishermen.

“This is temporary," I promised my office mates. “I'm sure it will be fixed soon.” But then, rumors started circulating that the cell tower blew a fuse during the Crayfish festival and it was not scheduled to be fixed anytime in this millennia.

“We need to find better internet,” I told Andrew.

“Well, you find internet wherever tourists are,” he said, pulling up the map.

By that evening, he sketched a route to take us from Luderitz through the most famous of Namibia's tourist sites all while blissfully supplied with operable internet. Half day driving, half day working. Half day exploring, half day working. Then, we would return to Luderitz a few days before our anticipated weather window and sail onward to St. Helena.

“I like it, it just might work,” I said, hope renewed.

We delivered Katherine Hepburn aboard Florence to nap on Matt's computer keyboard and demand tuna snacks while he and Amy edited their footage from the Fish River Canyon.

As we exited town, Andrew texted Mattais to say “we are headed North!”

“That’s great!” Mattais immediately responded. “We would love it if you joined us for dinner at our house when you arrive in Windeok.” We agreed, and our plans to explore Namibia were coming together nicely,

…all because the cell tower blew its fuse.

Road Tripping Namibia

The Namibian dirt roads stretched into infinity before us and the almost-full moon hung long into the daytime sky. We were each settled into our usual respective seats: Leslie the Helmswoman, Andrew the Navigator. The white 4x4 truck with its well-kept suspension floated over the Namibian dirt roads, keeping a clip almost equivalent to freeway driving in the United States.

Would I ever have expected to road trip through Namibia?

When was it that I even realized Namibia existed on a map?

At this point in our sailing career, you'd think I’d expect travel in any form to be just “part of the plan,” but, I still often peer into my life through a windowed perspective of someone who never expected to be a sailor and had little concept of herself engaged in world travel. It doesn't feel that long ago. And so, finding myself in Namibia still surprises - and delights - me. 

We spent the night in a "city" consisting of a nicely appointed camp, one tiny convenience store selling ostrich eggs, and one gas pump. Golden hour glowed with desert grass and nibbling Oryx on the landscape. A giant great dane kept Andrew company while he cooked our dinner over the braai.

The next day, we passed through zebra territory. 

“Are they dirty?" I asked Andrew.  The Zebras were almost like the black and white ones we all see in picture books and which covered the Serengeti plains in huge herds. But these zebras were striped with black and a color closer to Namibia’s red soil.

“Nope," Andrew said skimming the guidebook Andy lent us. “They are a whole different breed of zebra. Namibia has the black and white ones, but red and black ones, too.”

"Whatd'ya know.” I marveled.

The closer we got to our destination of Soussousuvlei, the more red the dirt (and the Zebras) became. Just as the sun was setting, we checked in at a resort that looked like it could be a James Bond villain’s lair. It would be an incredible place to stay, but we had opted to camp next door. The woman behind the desk handed over a key to our campsite with our very own shower and bathroom, a shade cover, a braai pit, and a nice flat spot to lay your tent.

And, at the nearby lodge? Operable Internet!

...to be continued...