In the 15th Century the Portuguese explorer Diogo Cao landed on African soil and erected a stone pillar close to where now in Namibia is The Cape Cross Fur Seal Reserve. You can imagine that he and his crew probably enjoyed some fresh meat after quite a few weeks at sea on biscuits and salt beef.

This reserve has an astonishing 150,000 plus seals and is the most unbelievable maelstrom of life. Just off shore seals leap and dive with undisguised play and at the beach things get a little more serious as territorial males jostle and heave for the rights to mate as many females as they can. Where the land rises to an area where you can stand in awe at everything that is going in front of you, females are giving birth on the rocks and sand and all around them skuas and gulls wait for the delights of the afterbirth – nothing is left to waste in nature.

The current runs north past this coast and is very swift. Louise and I were walking on the beach next to The Cape Cross Lodge, a surreal rebuilding of the seal canning factory, (that sits downstream of the colony) into a magnificent hotel, when we came across this baby seal sitting, forlornly on the rocks. At first glance I thought that it was just resting but as we got closer I realised that it should really be back at the colony, it was too young to be on its own and had got itself washed down here on the current. It was not far off dying, a sad reflection on a part of life that many of us have lost touch with. We walked on for a couple of hours and on our return the seal short life had ended to help the lives of gull, skua and Brown Hyena young – we felt sad for the seal but………..C’est la vie!!.