Sandwich Harbour
Sandwich Harbour (rarely Sandwich port; Portuguese: Porto d' Ilheo ) is located in the South Atlantic Ocean, about 42 km south of Walvis Bay in Namibia.
Sandwich Harbour is both the name of a former harbor on the Namibian Southern Atlantic Coast, as well as a name for this bay itself this is very rare and Sandwich Bay ( Afrikaans: Sandwichbaai, English: Sandwich Bay) called. Today it generally refers to the lagoon, which arises due to increasing silting of the bay. It is therefore no longer a bay in the classical sense. The lagoon is about 10 km long.
Nature and Environment
Sandwich Harbour is wetland, which was recognized by the Ramsar Convention as internationally important. Sandwich Harbour is one of the four sections of the Namib -Naukluft Park. He can be reached only during the day of Walvis Bay with boats and all-terrain vehicles.
The area is maritime and land- turn surrounded by reeds and sand dunes of the Namib Desert, and that is through shifts in the sand masses in their lagoon appear - as well as the larger Walvis Bay wetland - a huge bird colony ( up to 450,000 animals), which countless seabirds provides optimum habitat; including ( Census 2008 ):
- 45,000 Small Flamingos
- 10,000 Great Flamingos
- Terns 60000-170000
And, among other cormorants, pelicans and other aquatic animals.
The area is a nationally and internationally recognized Important Bird Area.
History
The Sandwich Harbour, also sand fish harbor (from Afrikaans: Sandvis ) called, went back to a port founded by Portuguese sailors in 1486, but was in the course of its history little more than an abandoned point between the Namib Desert and the Atlantic Ocean. An approximately 20 km north set Padrão ( stone cross ) bears testimony to this past. The inaccessible coast was annexed by England in 1796, but was on the Portuguese declining Sandwich port 1884 part of German South-West Africa and briefly point of contact for the colony. 1889 gained the harbor political and economic relevance as a supply port of the then German South-West Africa and in the immediate vicinity of the then British Walvis Bay. At times, passed a fishing plant and a slaughterhouse. The port itself has, however, replaced from 1893 in its function through the port of Swakopmund.