Today comprised of two special tours by Mola-Mola Safaris at Pelican Point in Walvis Bay. Each is interesting enough to be in its own post.  This is the first of those two, with the second half coming tomorrow.

We spent the morning on a half-day boat cruise.  I know… yawn…  I had not expected much from it and thought it would be waste of a morning.  Didn’t take me long to change my mind though!  As we launched from the dock, we were quickly pursued by a dozen seals plus a few dolphins.  The seals swam faster than I had ever seen before, creating their own surf (left) to keep up with us, until one of them separated from the group and walked right up the rear ladder and into the boat! (right).  We were then encouraged to pet him as he walked around the deck and the boat captain fed him fish that he had brought aboard with him.

As soon as the seals left us, we were attacked by pelicans!  They landed on our boat’s roof, on the front deck, and at least a dozen flew alongside us for more than an hour.  The top two images shows why — the boat captain proffered fresh fish to those that would come close enough to take it out of his hand.

Pelicans have been one of our favorite birds to photograph, but we have had few opportunities to actually get good images of them.  This tour gave us enough images to satisfy us for quite a time to come!  Our photographers lined up on the deck firing off their camera as quickly as they could.

Rather than the somewhat ugly Brown Pelican we get in North and South America, these are Great White Pelicans.  At first I didn’t even recognize them as such, due to the strong pink tinge to their upper beak and feathers, but “pink snow pelican” appears to only be a popular name on PInterest, and not a legit name.

During this hour, there was always one pelican on the roof.  We finally discovered why, when the boat captain opened a hatch.  The bird stuck his head through the opening, and was rewarded with a fish the captain gave him (right).

At the end of the day, we returned to our hotel, only to discover there was a large flock of flamingos feeding in the shallow waters on Walvis Bay.