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The name Skeleton Coast comes from the shipwrecks and skeletons found along the coastline. Many ships ran ashore here and crews, thinking that they were saved, soon realised that they had reached a desert with no civilisation in sight.
This is one of our planet’s most inhospitable, but hauntingly beautiful places – it is wild, desolate and uninhabited. It has everything from roaring sand dunes and windswept plains, to towering canyons and saltpans and one of the most productive fishing grounds anywhere.
Freshwater springs permeate through barren sands to create rare oases in the desert that sustain pockets of wildlife. Springbok, gemsbok (oryx), the rare desert elephant, ostrich, Cape fur seals, jackal and brown hyena and even cheetah on rare occasions eke out an existence in this rugged terrain, along with the vegetation like the ancient welwitschia plant which has adapted to the harsh conditions.
The arid desert environment in the Skeleton Coast is within the northern reaches of the Namib Desert. The Benguela current brings cold waters all the way from Antarctica and helps to moderate temperatures. The cool air off the ocean meets the hotter desert air and nearly every morning, a cool mist envelops the coastline, bringing life-sustaining moisture to the desert.
A truly remarkable destination, The Skeleton Coast conjures up mysterious visions of mist-enshrouded beaches strewn with bleached whalebones and rusted shipwrecks. Visitors will find the Skeleton Coast a landscape of haunting beauty - a vast area of rolling sand dunes, expanses of uninhabited desert plains, fossil beds, unique geological formations, desert-adapted animals and strange vegetation.
