Sodwana Bay Diving

Ah no, I don't think I can take any more of this. Thank goodness we *have* to go home today.

We did the early dive out to five mile reef and it was only an ok dive; the dives yesterday and the day before have been so outstanding that pretty much anything is going to be a let down.

Here we have a ribbon eel which I have never seen before. although you can only see about 20cm of him, he is about 1m long and the way that they can reverse into these crevices is just amazing. Apparently these are quite rare so it was great to get a nice picture of him.

This is know as a frog fish and this is a particularly large on. Ugly bugger isn't he! These feed by waiting until some unsuspecting fish swims just too close and then the frog fish quickly inhales some water and down the gullet the morsel goes. No effort required, no energetic swimming, no adrenalin pumping while running down the prey. Just a quiet inhale, now you see him, now you don't.

I had to put a clown fish in. They're hard to leave out and they're not afraid to take you one even though we would look like a whale to them.

Low tide in Sodwana Bay. We are happy to report that things have moved on and that the divers are no longer expected to push the boat to the water; the tractor does it now which is quite a welcome change.

I thought I should show what the actual sodwana bay beach actually looks like. In the foreground under the roof is the dive kit area where we wait between boat rides and where we kit up. A little higher in the wooden hut is the beach kitchen. We had slap chips and egg burgers (without the patty) which weren't half decent. Even the filter coffee from the cafe was actually quite good.
Well, that was it! Another very successful diving trip. Just the long trip back to joburg. We decided to let the GPS choose the route home and after several seemingly dodgy decisions it foudn a great route home - right though the middle of a game reserve which I didn't even know was there.

Sodwana Bay Diving

Living in 'sef efrika' it can be quite easy to let the problems that we really do have get the better of one. I know many people that have retreated into the blame game, not that I am averse to putting blame where it is due but there are limits and one really doesn't need to go on ad nauseum. There is a favourite saying when one just doesn't know what to say. By way of example seeing someone putting a sign up next to a pothole to say "watch out for the pothole" instead of just fixing the pothole would result in the refrain "ag, only in africa". Up until today I had only heard it in a negative sense, well that changed today! Today on the boat ride back we were with a group of people who were full of life talking about yesterday having had a fantastic dive in the morning, a wedding at midday and watching a cheetah kill in a game park at sundown while the sipped their drinks; "only in africa" can one do this.

Back to more mundane things like photographs! How is this for cool, the only thing I would change if I could about this photograph would be the name of the photographer who took it!

We found this rather large turtle hiding under a ledge, fortunately he didn't attack like last time.

This is me! Just after I cut my finger open on some coral while turning around in the channel. Blood underwater looks completely black and it sort of oozes out.

If I knew that I just had to cut myself in order to see sharks I would do it more often. Great sightings of white tipped reef sharks. They were really close at times i.e. no more than a couple of metres away checking my bleeding appendage out carefully. Calculating how easily it would come off the rest of my body probably.

Yet another pair of absolutely awesome dives, the reefs here definitely seem to be in much better condition than when I last dived here. More fish, bigger fish and just generally an increase in aquatic life was fantastic to see.

Sodwana Bay Diving

Diving is getting easier and easier, or so it seems and I keep on getting this feeling that I've forgotten something. It would be really awkward to get out to the dive site with no fins!

First dive was awesome and set the tone for the weekend. I couldn't find my camera so I was diving cameraless which I quite enjoyed so all the underwater photo's were taken by barry.

Dropping down to the reef we literally came down on a potato bass which, as you can see is a pretty big fish if you look at the size of the divers. And for those wondering if it is the perspective of the camera lens; no it isn't. These fish really are that big!


Next up, a beautiful honeycomb moray eel. There were actually a whole bunch of great sightings but some I didn't get good photo's of and, in any case, there would be too many photo's and it would end up boring people.


Next up is an emperor angelfish. I often tell people that diving is like birdwatching but underwater and with much more vivid colours.


It is not everyday that one dives and gets to see manta rays. Bary took a fantastic video of them swimming around us but it is over 50Mb in size so I can't publish it. Watching the way they effortlessly glide through the water makes one feel like a complete klutz underwater.


Last but not least, a paperfish which again, is pretty rare or at least it used to be.


What a fantastic days diving. Warm water, cool weather, almost no current nor surge and great visibility. It couldn't get any better than this.

Getting back to the lodge, we had a bit of a rest before we went down to the bar to have a quiet drink and to fill in the log books. We were just about to sit down when we hear a "Barry!" and then a "Roland!" which is disconcerting so far away from our normal stamping grounds. Turns out some people we work with at one of the banks also dive and just happen to be down as well. So the quiet drink and cigar turned out quite differently in the end.

Sodwana Bay Diving

The weekend didn't start off so auspiciously. I have a great rule of thumb for diving that says that after completing another 25 dives I can buy another piece of dive equipment which has worked out to be a great rule. Having completed 100 dives while in Mauritius, I came back "in the market" for a new regulator, first stage and octo. I found the one I wanted but they didn't have stock but, they said, they'd order it and it would *definitely* be here in time for the weekend. To cut a long story short; it wasn't so I decided to take an alternative but I didn't look too closely at it in the shop. Getting home I found that not only was it not the one I actually wanted but it wasn't even the same make. Quickly phoned them and they agreed that they'd given me the wrong one and that I should bring it back and get the one I actually wanted after the weekend. I have still to do this of course but it is looking hopeful.

The drive down in my fortuner was uneventful if very long. It is only 650km to sodwana give or take a few kilometres depending on ones' route but it took us about 10-11 hours altogether thanks to the roadworks and bad roads. It is great that they are fixing the roads up but I would that it was while I wasn't wanting to use them.

Arrived at Sodwana Bay Lodge and checked in. The rooms now have air conditioning - what luxury! Went down to the restaurant to find that they have exactly one vegetarian dish so gourmet dining isn't on the cards.

Last Day!

Now that it is here, we're quite sad to be leaving. Not so much because we can't tear ourselves away but we're just not that looking forward to picking up the yoke at home. We'd better make the next holiday soon.

I started out the day with my 100th dive which is something of a milestone in diving. What a dive! I wish they were all like this one. Saw about 5 rays on the bottom which we managed to get quite close to before they flew away; rays don't swim, they fly through the water. It's amazing to watch. Also saw a stone fish which is quite poisonous and a whole bunch of nudibranches but mostly I just enjoyed the dive itself, warm water, great visibility, no current or surge to speak of and loads of interesting fish to look at - perfect.

The second dive was also really good, we dived at the same place as a couple of days ago. And swam past the same fish trap that had the big trigger fish but this time the trap was in pieces and a nice big hole in the wire at the top. Talking to the dive master afterwards he said that the trigger fish must have broken the trap, probably by chewing through the wire mesh, which was nice to hear. The trap itself was pretty much unmistakable because it was right at the beginning of the dive and had a long anchor rope unlike any other I've seen. Another great dive, saw octopus and fire coral amongst a host of other fish. The dive master pulled an octopus out of its hole and as I went to touch it, it squirted a cloud of black ink at me. What a great sighting.

At the deco stop, my dive buddies computer put him into deco for 25 minutes so while the rest of us went up after 10 minutes he had to stay down for a further 15 minutes at 5m. Pretty boring but it made me very happy that I had kept with the dive master during the first dive and hadn't dived deep with my partner.

Back on the beach, Caron and I read and drank the day away. I'm now on my 5th book which is something of a record for me although it is tough to concentrate with so many women in bikini's walking past my nose the whole time. Not easy I tell you!

Late afternoon we had a sundowner which was very tasty and I attempted to take a holiday snap which sort of worked.


As the sun set for our last time over the Indian ocean I snapped the following of the resort.





What a tough place to have to stay for a week!

Almost there ...

I'm starting to wake up early without an alarm clock; not a good sign because it means that I have started catching up on sleep and the next phase is about to begin which is melancholic boredom.

We started the day off with a snorkel and swam quite far out towards the reef, far enough that we were swimming in actual waves even though we were still within the reef. As you can see from the picture we were literally within arms length of the reef and sometimes closer. It would not be wise to do this swim at any time other than near high tide because one would definitely impale oneself on a coral.

The coral, by the way, seems to be happily growing although there is some dead coral here and there, from el nino I presume.

Sea urchins, like british women, are not normally things of great beauty but how is this for a sea urchin!

We saw loads of vividly coloured and curious fish and the occasional clam, a few about 250mm across which is quite a large clam. This is besides the coral and the anenomes; it really is a special place to snorkel as long as one doesn't spear oneself on some coral.

I was paddled into by a novice, I give him the benefit of the doubt, paddler but I still can't fathom how incompetent you have to be to do that. No harm done so we carried on, I tried Caron's new snorkel out; what a difference! I am definitely going to buy myself one of those when I get back to Johannesburg.

We spent the rest of the day sitting under our tree, watching the scenery, and reading ... not exactly taxing. I saw several people going bright red today and I just can't understand it. If I go that red, I'm in pain for days; do these people just not feel it or am I just oversensitive?

16:00 arrived and out next session at the panel...spa. I asked for the same girl that gave me the massage - silvanah (or selva, we differ on what her name actually was) because she was really good last time. This time I asked here to just go a little harder and it was perfect, probably the best massage I have ever had. I'm not much into curios but if I had to take one from here, I would take her. Of course she might not be so keen. Great massage and then a steam bath followed by two showers to try and get the oil of; I don't know what oil they use but they use plenty of it and it's a devil to get off.

Clean and neat, we went to the bar to get a cocktail to have on the beach while the sun went down but the staff at the bar were so pathetic that the sun had long gone by the time we got down to the beach. I wonder if we can give tips bar the bar.

Yet another good meal and then off to bed. Last day tomorrow.

Aaaah, another day in Paradise.

It's starting to not feel so much like paradise, more like the movie that Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson were in called "The Island" - everything is perfect but you have the feeling that there is something you're missing.


We haven't left the boundaries of the resort which I am sure is what the proprietors want but I just don't have the energy to actually go and do something, all this relaxing is getting to me. I'm starting to feel like I'm Odysseus on the Isle of Lotus-Eaters.

Caron doing her best to smile and still communicate the message "I'll get you later!".

Today was dive day and we (the other divers and myself) had two really nice dives. The first was called "white cliffs" and is practically in the gap in the reef that boats use to come in and go out of. It's a wall dive with the bottom being at about 28m and the top at about 15m so we just gently drifted along the wall at about 18m. Saw lots of nudibranches and a juvenile emperor which has bright blue and white concentric circles on it's body. Very pretty. Loads to see, warm water and great visibility made for a great dive.

The second dive was within the reef so a bit shallower and we saw a cream with brown spots snake which I was told is actually an eel; a first for me. We also saw fishing traps with fish trapped in them. There was a large trigger fish in one of them who was going frantic, swimming hard but ineffectually into the wire mesh wall of the trap. I felt quite sorry for them, by tonight the beautiful trigger is fish is going to be on someone's plate, a barely remembered meal of what was once a thing of grace and beauty. Pretty sad when one thinks of it, it's not that it is wrong; just sad.

When we came up there was a bank of dark cloud on the horizon and as we neared the resort it solidified into driving rain which stung quite a lot. Washed up and then went to find Caron who had retired to the room so we slept and read the afternoon away while it rained intermittently.

As I write this, I am completely in the dark because the resort as a whole is observing earth hour so everything is off including the air-conditioner. Everything else I can cope with but I have grown quite attached to the air-conditioner. I think we are starting to acclimatise because the outside temperature of late 20's or very early 30's is starting to feel normal and the room to feel quite chilly.

To finish the day off I went for a walk between rain showers while Caron continued to snore away. Very beautiful in spite of the overcast weather although I think that as far as actual physical beach goes, South African beaches are much nicer to walk on.

A quiet day.

Since I'm not diving and the snorkel boat was full I had to find alternative entertainment since my normal source of entertainment, that would be Caron, is starting to fight back.

I managed to get one of the two lasers that can only be used at high tide and set off for a bit of a sail. Their description of where I may and may not sail was just a little bit vague and definitely not helped by the language difficulties. I headed out in the direction that they indicated was ok to sail but I think I went out further than they expected and a speedboat soon appeared to inform me that I wasn't allowed there. Sailing is only allowed in the 30 minutes before and after full tide because the lagoon is, in general, too shallow to sail on. Even a full tide, the rocks and coral are disconcertingly close to the bottom of the centreboard.

I have to confess that I did capsize a couple of times and had my hat taken off during a gybe but other than that I managed ok, at least I didn't have to be rescued from the coral reef. My sunburn on my legs from yesterday was quite painful, since I ride quite a lot I tend to think of my legs as sun insensitive but there's this little gap between where cycling shorts come down to and where a swimming costume comes down to. This piece of skin turned out to be very sensitive so I have a very wierd sunburn because halfway down my thigh it just disappears into suntanned skin.

We basically didn't budge for the rest of the day; all we did was laze around and read, drink water and move the deck chair into deeper shade as the sun moved across the sky. Caron went for a wrap and bake at the spa (I am not to call it 'the panelbeaters' anymore) and when she returned we had a plate of chips between us.

I was eating a nectarine while leaning over our balcony either yesterday or the day before and I felt a drop of juice escape and as I followed it's flight path downwards, the girl downstairs stepped out; the juice missed her nose by inches and her cleavage by less. Fortunately she didn't notice the sudden appearance of a dark splodge on the cement to I kept quiet and all ended well.

When the sun had gone down we showered and I shaved, much to caron's delight/relief, and dressed in what passes for formal wear here and went to the bar. It's not a coincidence that I've avoided the bar; R250 for a single J&B whisky and a Bombay Saphire G&T. I'm not sure about other people but this is expensive for me, I briefly thought that maybe we should have taken the 'all inclusive' package but then I noticed that most of the bar menu was excluded which makes me wonder what the 'all inclusive' package actually includes.

Nevertheless we had a very pleasant time sipping our drinks as night fell.

Supper was eastern this evening and, as always, it was delicious. I'm having to try really hard not to make a pig of myself but, thus far, I am managing.

Diving in Mauritius.

Woke up late 07:30 so we had to rush breakfast and get down to the dive shop pronto in time to catch the boat.

There are only 5 divers myself included so it doesn't take long to kit up and carry our dive kit down to the waiting hard chine dive boat. I last dived over 2 years ago so by rights I should have had a pool session but since I have close to 100 dives; they let is slide and it didn't take long for everything to come back. It all feels so natural now, a bit like riding the proverbial bicycle. It will be my first dive with Nitrox instead of air and I should have switched my dive computer to nitrox but I just left it on air which is a more conservative measure mostly because I don't have the manual to switch to nitrox and you have to key in percentages and stuff and I don't want to be down there wondering if I did it right.

The first dive wasn't so fantastic, not too much to see but the water is nice and warm. We did see a small moray and a stinging nettle which was mid water and looked like fishing line just floating along with small poison capsules spread along it's length which was about a metre. I only wore a 1mm wetsuit top and I was plenty warm enough and 4kg of lead had me sinking like a stone. The second dive was much better, 2kg of lead; more than enough. We saw a nudibranch, a leaf fish (it looks just like seaweed) and several octopi. The octopi were very shy and refused to come out of their holes so we could only peer in at them. The diving rules here are more relaxed so they allow you to gently touch some of the things like the anenome that nemo usualy hangs around. Quite interesting, the 'tentacles' for want of a better word attach themselves to your finger quite quickly and you have to give a bit of gentle tug to get your hand away. One of the girls accidentally had them latch onto her forearm and she had a nasty case of mosquito bites where they touched her skin. Much more successful second dive and it was nice to get back to the boat with more than 70 still on the gauge, it really is like riding a bicycle.

Back on land and after a shower I found Caron on a beach recliner in deep shade which is unusual for her but ideal for me. We spent the afternoon reading, no silicone on display today, until the sun lost it's heat when we went for a walk along the beach past I don't know how many beachside holiday resorts. The beach is a bit eina to walk on because it isn't really sand but a mixture of coral and sand and sometimes the coral isn't as broken up as it should be.

I've seen a number of local fishermen on their boats during the day but we got to see some locals fishing with a net from the shore. They were catching small sardine like fish - they didn't look very appetising to me but they seemed pretty happy with them.

Back at the shack, another splendid meal and then before we knew it, it was sleepies time. Enjoyed watching a small child throw all the the decorative rocks around the edge of the pool into the pool! Ah, the joys of parenting!

First day in the sun!

First things up - Activities, diving for me; spa for Caron, I just get to tag along. Turns out that we can only dive tomorrow because todays boat has already left but we can at least get into the panelbeaters, I mean spa. Ouch!

We spent the morning snorkeling just off the beach which has quite a vicious side current, so much so that swimming at full tilt simply means that one stays still. I took my camera swimming, the advertising says that it is waterproof to 3m so there is only one way to find out if it is true. It is, check these out ...

and here we have sun baby absorbing some UV on the platform anchored about 75m offshore.


Once we had finished snorkeling we commandeered some beach recliners in a shady spot just next to a 50+ year old tanning topless; there weren't any other recliners so we didn't have a choice. Topless sunbathing is verboten but doesn't seem to stop the french, at least I think they're french. Not that I'm complaining mind you but it did have Caron chortling under her breath at me trying to act as if this is a completely normal situation for me; which it isn't.


We spent the majority of the afternoon just chilling out on the beach reading and at 17:00 we went to the spa where we were panelbeaten, I mean massaged, but it was quite unlike the Sani2C pain festival. This was really pleasant, I think that I am going to have to do it again. After the massage which went so quickly that I suspect that they have faster than normal clocks, it couldn't possibly have been a whole hour; I went for a steam sauna and then a cold (cool, nothing here is actually cold) shower. I had another shower back at the room because the oil they use for massage just won't wash off.

It was only at this point that Caron pointed out that the back of my legs were quite sunburnt from the snorkeling. A great supper, we have fallen into the 3 course habit. First up is a plate of salads/starters and then the main course which is chased down the hatch with some cheese on rolls. I am trying my best to restrain myself so I don't roll out of here like the other tubs of lard that are all around me. They make me feel quite lean and I should not be feeling that way.

So, all in all day 1 - Sunburn, great food and silicone boobs.

Mauritius, here we come!

Not much to report, the trip to Mauritius takes far longer than the 4 hours flying time that one expects.

We woke up late i.e. after 06:00 and had a relaxed breakfast and left for the airport at 09:30. For some reason they want people at the airport 3 hours before flights. I can understand an hour or two but 3 hours is getting a little bit ridiculous. It did however give me tons on time to break some plastic in the 'duty free' which is supposed to actually be cheaper than buying the same goods on the landside. Not so much. All that happens is that the retailers pocket the duty they would have had to pay to customs. You do get a slight discount because you don't have to pay VAT but other than that, it's just more profit for the retailers. I think they should change the name because 'Duty Free' it isn't. Nevertheless, I now have a new phone and a new pair of sunglasses to replace the stolen ones. It only took close to 4 months to get the payout from the insurance company. They were pretty good about it, i.e. they didn't squabble about valuations but it did take a long time.

Seeing as we are flying against the rotation of the earth, we landed in darkness and by the time we made it to the hotel is was 21:00 Mauritian time. By the time we finally made it to bed it was 01:30 Mauritian time by which time we, read I, was starting to get a bit ratty. If they could just have delivered our bags to our room without having to encourage them to do so, three times.

The hotel looks beautiful, this is the view as you walk into the front entrance:

and another view, the night was warm at 30 deg C but not that stifling heat of Dubai, probably thanks to a bit of a breeze.


I always judge rooms by whether they are more or less comfortable than home and I have to say that for the first time that I can remember this room cuts the cake. No hotel room that I have stayed at in europe comes close and neither does any of the south african hotels I have stayed in. Hope Caron doesn't take to this too much because we would have to knock half our house down to create something similar.


While we were waiting for the bags we went and had some supper on the terrace which is just visually superb and is complimented by the cuisine. I'm not much of a gastronaut (gastronome) but I am definitely going to enjoy the fine dining to be had here.

Bags finally arrived so after a shower in the 'wet room' we were off to bed. Did I mention that the room as a study attached? How convenient. The hotel does not have wireless internet access which, in my book, is a particularly black mark.

Selborne, Place of Sloth!

Ughhh! It is almost time to depart and return to the rat race. We have been staying at Kirsten and Carl's place on Selborne Golf estate just outside Pennington on the Natal south coast for a few days and to say that it has been idyllic would be an understatement. The view if I turn my head looks like this



My day consists of waking up at the leisurely hour of 6:00, making coffee for Caron and heading out to Sea Fever for the 08:00 dive and just to make sure that I'm not doing too much, I only dive once a day. I arrive back at about 11:00 just in time to wake Caron from her mid-morning nap, sort out the photos from the dive before a light lunch. We both laze about reading and catching up on work (you just can't get away from it) until about 15:00 when we sloth down to the spa for our massage. Returning we continue reading and make supper and go to bed at about 21:30 ready for yet another day. It's a tough life here in africa hey!

I think the most irritating feature of being down here is that I (and caron) are having to put up with using GPRS to connect to the internet. It has become such a part of our lives that we just can't do without it and not only is it dog slow but it is very intermittent. Very, very annoying and I'm busy looking at using GPRS for a systems' communications so this experience has not filled me with confidence should I say. Sometimes I have to send the same email three of four times before the damn thing will depart.

I've really been enjoying the diving, calm seas, little or no current or surge. So, so visibility but definitely good enough to work with. As can be seen from the photographs below, I still haven't quite moved on from shooting relatively stationary underwater life. Photographing constantly moving fish is nigh impossible and digital doesn't help - you're just framed the friggin' thing beautifully, squeezed the shutter. The flash goes off but when you preview it, the frame is empty or there is another fish staring at you half in and half out the frame. Very frustrating. It makes taking photographs on the land feel decidedly easy.


Two Nudibranchs caught in the act, well almost!


A Feather Duster Worm or Giant Fanworm. That all worms looked this good.


A Raggy Scorpionfish, how is that for pisceaen attitude!


A Honeycomb Moray eel showing off his fine set of dentures.

You can just see that my camera has developed a fault and there an entire row of ccd's that have gone on the blink so every photograph now has a nice line through it. I will have to find out if I can get it fixed or whether I will have to interpolate across the remaining pixels to 'fix' it.

I tried to take a picture of a jelly fish about a metre under the surface which is a particular challenge because above about 3 or 4m below the surface one tends to become positively buoyant which, while normally a good thing, for diving is definitely undesirable. Also at about a metre, the action of the waves is quite pronounced so trying to keep the same distance from the jelly fish, at the same depth and getting the camera to focus on a translucent object was only marginally successful. It is a fortunate thing indeed that one only appreciates what went into taking the beautiful photographs in books and documentaries after one has tried to take them oneself. If one knew how difficult it actually was, one wouldn't even bother trying.

I am feeling very pleased with myself because I am down to a 2kg weight belt and using a 10l steel tank and have not had any problems with buoyancy even at 1m under the surface and I haven't had to come up before the whole group or those left in the group all come up. Eventually I want to get to a stage where I don't need to ever put air into my bc in order to adjust my buoyancy, I should just be able to control it by breathing. Still a way to go but I think I'm getting there.

I was involved in a minor underwater panic, minor for me that is, pretty major for the person involved. It was right at the end of the dive at about 15m and I had 70bar left and all but one other person and the dive master had already completed their dives. The other diver suddenly swam like a man possessed towards the dive master and grabbed his spare octo which would only happen if he had been careless and not kept a sharp eye on his pressure gauge. The rule is, once you hit 50bar you head for the surface to avoid little incidents like this. Anyway everyone ascended calmly to the surface before the dive master came back down to meet me at the 5m deco stop. Amazing how fast one can swim when survival mode kicks in!

Sodwana Bay

It seems like ages since I last went diving but in reality, it isn't so long ago. I met Barry at work and cleared out some emails before we departed on the 7 hour drive down to Sodwana Bay lodge. It was a very quiet drive and it doesn't even seem so long these days. We went down in my 320d which is proving to be the ideal car for long distance travelling, we drove from Johannesburg to Sodwana Bay and back to Pongola which is about 1000km on just over 3/4 of a tank of fuel. Just absolutely amazing and extremely reasonable on the pocket. My new glasses are making such a difference to my driving since I don't get anywhere near as tired with them on as I do when I don't use them.

Saturday morning we were meant to get collected from the Dive Shop but 20 minutes after the designated time, out lift still hadn't appeared so we resigned ourselves to lugging our dive gear over the dunes and drove down in my car. Once on the beach it looked like we weren't even going to get one dive in let alone two. Apparently, the coast guard had closed the entire coast because of the cyclone just south of Madagascar and this was only lifted at about 10:00 which meant we had just enough time to dive before the wind picked up and made diving impossible. The rest of the boat was a couple of small dive schools so everyone else was on either their first or second dives which is normally a recipe for interesting things to happen.

From the shore the waves didn't look that big and there seemed to be a big gap between the swells but once we got onto the sea the swells were largeish at about 3m but they were unusual in that they were travelling much faster than normal waves so the boat skippers were having real difficulty in getting the gap. A couple of times we almost got through only to be stymied by the back line and had to turn tail and run back in and wait for another so called gap. We had to punch through a couple of waves which is like driving through a wall of water with a not so hydro-dynamic inflatable boat. We also had waves break on both the port and starboard sides, quite an experience by the end of the weekend and quite a welcome for the novices. Once we got beyone the back line the sea was actually fine but the swells were big. We heard later that Durban actually closed the port which is a highly unusual occurrence and the shops near the harbour mouth got flooded and the durban boardwalk which is normally way above the high tide mark was flooded and half the beach dumped on it. In other words, NOT small waves which didn't bode well for the dive because big waves equals big surge.
Sure enough, the surge was huge and at times one could barely see the reef for the sand in the water. This dive was unusual because by the time we had descended to depth the novices were nowhere to be seen. Normally there is a problem with one or two but at least some of them normally make it down. There was so little to photograph that I think I only took 5 pictures and we aborted the dive after about 30 minutes due to the surge and lack of visisbility. Nevertheless it was great to actually get wet again.

Spent the afternoon watching the rugby on and off and reading "tour de force" which is proving to be a very interesting book. The way that Lance Armstrong comes across I'm not sure that he should be a model for other people to follow except if they want to win at cycling. Had supper and retired early pretty exhausted. There is definitely something about diving and detox that go hand in hand.




Sunday morning the waves were no better but there wasn't much wind so we managed to get in two dives, both of which we managed the whole dive instead of having to abort it. Met a Canadian girl travelling on her own who professed to be a professional photographer. Yet another Canadian to reinforce the general stereotype that they are inordinately insecure and lost, I wonder what it is about them. It's a bit like they speak, think and act like a yank but they're definitely not and outside of speaking, thinking and acting how do they exhibit their Canadianness? They can't, hence the tortured lost soul type. Also met two guys from Venezuella, Jorge and Guillermo who were a whole bundle of fun. A bit like teenagers, always on the prowl for the next lay. Very funny to watch. After the second dive we had lunch with them and talked a bit about Hugo Chavez who, in their books, is from the pit of hades. They clearly come from the have's and Chaves is taking from them and giving to the have nots and it isn't going down very well.

We managed two dives today and surprise, surprise nobody got lost although the diving was pretty miserable. Still loads of surge and sand in the water. Didn't open my camera and I have now done 3 dives on it. Note for the future, the battery will only last one dive if I take more than 25 frames on a dive. It would be great to be able to do more but it is still such an advance on the analog camera.




More rest and relaxation during the afternoon before a quiet supper and a cigar down at the bar below afterwards. Watched a bunch of teenagers vying for the attentions of the one and only blonde girl in the group while they pretended to play pool.

Monday morning the swells were still big but not huge. Unlike Saturday and Sunday when there was the dive group, today we were the only South Africans on the boat. We had Italians, Belgians, Canadian, American, Venzuelan and French diving with us. Talk about the united nations, I must say that it is really great to see so many different nationalities coming to see South Africa. The one Italian who actually works in Stockholm was particularly funny. He was huge, so big that he couldn't bend over far enough to put his fins on in the boat but besides that, he thought he was coming to the third world and having arrived in Sodwana Bay, he was still looking for it. He describes his experiences in Italian laced broken English. He says that he lands and the airport, she is beautiful. The roads, they are beautiful, the verges all trimmed just like in Germany. And his cell phone he says, it works everywhere. So where is this third world he asks only half believing our answer that it definitely exists.

While we were kitting up we happened to be standing next to the Canadian girl Laura who needed some suntan creme put onto her back. I'm sure that Guillermo and Jorge would have obliged but she looked around and found the least threatening male i.e. the oldest, grayest i.e. Barry to apply the lotion and I could't help but see the funny side. What I didn't know was that Jorge and Guillermo were keeping a beady eye on our side of the matt and just about killed themselves laughing at me suppressing my laughter. Lots of Spanish chatter and laughter.

The conditions, while hardly perfect, were much better than yesterday so I was very hopeful for the dive. My camera has been recharged and the memory stick cleared so I'm all ready for a great dive. We get out to the dive site and there are the usual sniggers as I get handed my weight belt. Most weight belts have between 5 and 8kg of lead on them, the heavier ones you need two hands to lift. Mine has 2kg on it and it looks positively anaemic. I should actually drop one or both of them but it is starting to look ridiculous to get handed a belt with a solitary kg on it so I have stopped at two. In reality I have another 2kg in my BC but nobody can see that so they think I am really only using 2kg's. As I pick up my BC and cylinder there is a loud pop and hiss of 210bar of compressed air escaping. I turn the valve off as quickly as I could and checked my O-ring. It looked okay to me but I waited for the skipper to come and check it which he did and it looked okay to him too but when he tried to pick up the bc and cylinder we had a repeat so he had to get a new O-ring for me. These two little leaks cost me 40bar of pressure so I was going down with only 170bar to last 50 minutes. I thought I would be up really early and I was pissed off that I wasn't going to have my full time down because of the O-ring.



I had an absolutely fantastic dive, it was still a bit sandy but nothing like yesterday and I saw so many things and I was just finning over to the dive master to tell him that I was low on air and going up when he signalled that everyone was to ascend. I made the entire dive on a miserable 170bar without taking any risks at all, very pleased with myself. When I get around to touching up the photographs I will put them in here but that is going to take quite a while. On the way back I was sitting next to Laura and opposite us were two of the Italians with these huge underwater cameras with twin flashes on stalks. They looked like something out of a sci-fi movie to which Laura comments that she has the same camera and casing and that she usually finds that the size of the camera and the size of the ego go hand in hand. Who was I to disagree!





Got back to the beach and washed all our kit and gave James and Ndu a tip each and said goodbye to everyone. I was walking around the outside of the tent saying cheers to Jorge and Guillermo when Laura appeared right in front of me and I almost didn't see her in time to stop. You know when someone invades your space and you have absolutely no idea why, she had scooted around the outside of the matt to find out what the tip that we had given James was but that isn't what Jorge and Guillermo thought was going on. They were hooting with laughter, chattering away and their parting sentence was an admonishment to me to "be good" to which I replied that I was always good, not that they believed me for one iota.

Drove the 7 hours back to Johannesburg and went straight off to a Cigar and Whisky evening. I can't believe what a difference these glasses make. There I was after having had an early morning, a dive and a 7 hour drive and still be wide awake up until 23:00 when I thought it best that I toddle off home. Great weekend, the last dive made up for all the other dives.