Port of Call

Walvis Bay, Namibia

By Drake Nanda

In the future, there will be two kinds of ports. The first are primarily major US harbors that will be likely targets for a small-scale nuclear attack via shipping container. These include New York, Chesapeake Bay, and even San Francisco. The second, of course, will be no-nuke potential ports. The timetables for these future fissionable ferries bound for the unlucky destinations have not yet been published, but rest assured the schedules are a top priority in certain mud huts and caves scattered throughout the Arab world. The Bush Administration’s mind-numbing foreign policy gaffs, missteps, dismissive diplomacy and general hubris will continue to provide plenty of incentive for a doomsday docking near you.

In an attempt to provide a survivable waterfront location as an alternative to a post-nuclear San Francisco Bay, the full time traveling research staff at Port of Call have scoured the globe to find a shore that offers many of the same maritime-ish amenities, but without the risk of all that nasty mega tonnage, throw weight and fall-out.

Welcome to Walvis Bay, Namibia! Without a doubt, this is the least likely target for a floating A-bomb aimed at dopey A-mericans. Situated at a comfortable low tropic latitude in the southern hemisphere, not only will new arrivals be shielded from direct attack, but they will be spared any annoying environmental side-effects from nearby blasts that will be swirling around the northern hemisphere for decades.

Walvis Bay is also exceedingly unknown. A small forgotten port in a faraway forgotten country that has not made any enemies, save apartheid South Africa and perhaps a few rebel factions that were fighting in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire), it is a perfect place to go incognito. What’s more, Namibia is a nice fit for progressive San Francisco Bay neo-hipsters. So Pee-Cee is Namibia that it was the first country in the world to include environmental protection in its constitution, with 14% of its territory under some kind of protection. And with just under two million inhabitants, you’ll always be able to find a campsite.

Walvis Bay also boasts a fair amount of cooling coastal fog, something the first German colonists found welcoming after romping around the Namib Desert and the interior subjugating the locals and forcing them off the good land. Although run as an Anglo enterprise-state either by Britain or South Africa since WWI, German is still one of the predominant languages in Namibia. And where German is spoken, good beer can’t be far away! While there is only one sushi bar in Walvis Bay, the freshness of the catch from the relatively unpolluted and plentiful south Atlantic more than makes up for a limited location.

So don’t let the bleak prospects of a plutonium induced deep fried future get you down. Don’t worry that our government has infuriated just about everyone in the world, including those with access to small-scale nuclear weapons. Just take an extended vacation in Walvis Bay until the whole thing blows over.

Walvis Bay, Namibia, you can get there from the San Francisco Bay in just 38 days and 19 hours traveling at 10 knots, only 9,304 miles away.