On the way to Walvis Bay

Book your meal to coincide with high tide, because at low tide The Raft sits high and dry.

Book your meal to coincide with high tide, because at low tide The Raft sits high and dry.

What is there to see along the B2 between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay?

Walvis Bay’s “white gold”
Between Walvis Bay and Swakopmund, about 400m offshore, there’s a tiny island named Bird Rock. Examine it through binoculars and you’ll see it’s practically surrounded by wooden platforms, usually with thousands of seabirds sitting on them.

Clever idea
These guano structures were built by a German joiner, Adolf Winter, who realised in 1923 that tons of valuable guano was being washed off the rocks at the high tide. His plan: Build structures on which the birds can sit undisturbed and, well, leave him a deposit, so to speak.
Winter didn’t have any capital and couldn’t get business partners (people thought it was a silly plan), but in 1930 he built a test structure. It worked. Within minutes of it being completed, the first birds landed on it. Over the next 10 years Winter built the platforms you still see there – 17 000 m² of wooden platforms, 3 m high, mounted on 1000 steel stilts. In the process Winter came to the edge of bankruptcy quite a few times. In 1931 he harvested only eight tons of guano, but by 1939 it had grown to 230 tons (with the help of almost 500 000 cormorants that came to nest on the platform).
Later, Winter even built a cableway to bring the guano ashore from the island. By 1943 he’d paid off his debt. He died a wealthy man in 1960. His great grandson, Wilfried Groenewald, currently runs the business.

Eating out in the bay
Walvis Bay doesn’t have nearly as many eateries as neighbouring Swakopmund, but The Raft can hold it own against any of them. It is basically a big wooden building on stilts about 30m offshore. From the outside it looks as if the carpenter mislaid the blueprint halfway through the project and then just improvised the rest. Inside, the atmosphere is genial and the views amazing.
Get there late afternoon and enjoy a cold Hansa Tafel (for only R8) at the bar and watch the sun set. Then have a meal at the restaurant. Our food was delicious and the servings generous.
Conclude your visit with a little Jägermeister. (By that time the small group of Korean fishing boat crew members will have improved their English considerably and they’ll be good company.)