Qualla: Ras Nouadhibou

Ras Nouadhibou: Introduction

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gugui92, CC BY-SA 3.0. Portuguese sailors gave it a plain name for a plain reason. In 1441 they rounded a headland of pale rock thrust into the Atlantic and called it Cabo Branco, the White Cape, the colour of the cliffs above the surf. Six centuries later the same finger of land carries three names in three languages, Ras Nouadhibou in Arabic, Cap Blanc in French, Cabo Blanco in Spanish, and a border runs down its spine that two governments cannot agree on. But the most remarkable thing on this 60-kilometre spit is not the geopolitics. It is the seals.

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Image: Gugui92 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ras Nouadhibou: The Last Colony

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, CC BY-SA 3.0 es. Along the headland's cliffs, in sea caves with entrances hidden below the waterline, lives the largest surviving colony of the Mediterranean monk seal, one of the rarest marine mammals on Earth. Cabo Blanco and the Greek island of Gyaros are the only two places in the world where...

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Image: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid | CC BY-SA 3.0 es

Ras Nouadhibou: Back From the Brink

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, CC BY-SA 3.0 es. In the summer of 1997, disaster nearly finished them. A bloom of toxic algae swept the colony, and within weeks roughly two-thirds of the animals were dead, the population crashing from some 350 to little more than 100. It looked like the beginning of the end. Instead, it became ...

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Image: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid | CC BY-SA 3.0 es

Ras Nouadhibou: A Border in the Sand

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, CC BY-SA 3.0 es. The headland is divided. On the eastern shore, barely a mile from the line, stands the bustling Mauritanian city of Nouadhibou. On the western shore lies La Guera, a ghost town of empty buildings whose ownership belongs, on paper, to the unresolved dispute over Western Sahara. Th...

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Image: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid | CC BY-SA 3.0 es

Ras Nouadhibou: Where Africa Watches the Sun Go Down

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, CC BY-SA 3.0 es. Cap Blanc is not the westernmost point of Africa, yet because of the tilt of the Earth it claims a stranger distinction: at least twice a year, it is the last place on the entire continent to see the sun set. A lighthouse has marked the cape since 1910, sweeping the same waters t...

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Image: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid | CC BY-SA 3.0 es