Sunday, November 20, 2016

It is a drilling rig.

The Debmar Atlantic is one of five deep-water mining vessels operating off the Namibian coast. 

By Ettagale Blauer

Diamonds (click here) have a habit of burying themselves in some of the most inhospitable places on earth. Some are in the frozen north of Canada and Russia, others in the hot sands of Australia. But there are few places more difficult to “mine” than the cold Atlantic Ocean, off the southwest coast of Africa. The task falls to the intrepid workers who live and work on diamond dredgers, led by the mv Mafuta, the newly christened ship registered in Lüderitz, Namibia, a coastal town in the southwest area of the country. Previously known as Peace in Africa, the ship moved to its new port in April 2013 and assumed its position as the world’s largest mining vessel. It is one of a fleet of five challenging the high winds and cold, rough seas of the region to recover diamonds from the ocean’s depths....