After several months of planning this trip which included a total of 9 flights and 4 locations we needed a holiday and were finally on our way for a two pronged attack of South Africa. Jo and David headed out to Cape Town then 6 days later Gavin, Alan and I landed in Durban, half an hour before Jo and Dave’s Cape Town flight arrived. We greeted them at the Hertz car rental with a big shiny white, people carrier, capacity for eight, which would be our transportation for the next 10 days.
Just over 4 hours later, as the sun was setting, we arrived at our first stop, Sodwana Bay which is less than an hour from the South African/Mozambique boarder and basically a dive camp in the middle of nowhere. Coral Bay Divers http://www.coraldivers.co.za/ which is situated inside a game park, where the less fortunate stay in tents, luckily we had luxury on suite huts with good kit drying facilities. The centre was very well organised but it was slightly “army style” with meals served buffet style, so no waiters which was quite a culture shock for Alan and a bar which closed at 9pm! As the beach was roughly 2km away you were ferried to the dive site, with all your kit in trailers towed by tractors. On first arrival looking down at the beach it looked like a scene from Saving Private Ryan of Omaha beach with lots of large tents, 100’s people everywhere, kit being transported from trailers onto pallets and then being loaded onto RIB’s which were coming and going all day. It transpired we had picked the busiest weekend of the year to visit because a dive club of over 60 divers had booked the centre for the weekend, at this point we were worried that we had booked the wrong place but it was all very well organised. There were no harbours at any of the sites where we dived in South Africa so you have to use brute strength to push the RIB into the water, then the skipper and the ladies get in while the men keep pushing until the water is up to their chests and the engines are started, then the remaining men climb aboard and you’re off, with some clever steering by the skipper to get you out to deeper water. On return you are all told to hold on tight as you ram the beach, Navy Seal style which was great fun!
The first day we went out to 7 mile reef followed by 2 mile reef in the afternoon, the dives in Sodwana Bay were by far the most colourful I have seen so far and had the most abundant numbers of fish of all sorts of colours. The second day we were hoping to do 9 mile reef as that is where you are most likely to see the big stuff like sharks etc but due to unfavourable winds we had to do both dives at 2 mile reef again, where the biggest thing we saw was a turtle, which was a bit of a shame but we still had a good time.
Before we knew it our 3 nights in Sodwana Bay were over and we were on our way driving south to our second destination Malala Lodge, http://www.malalalodge.com/ a three hundred and forty acre private nature reserve near to Hluhluwe-Imfolosi Game Reserve. The accommodation was fantastic and the dinners were amazing, to quote Alan “it’s like being invited over to a friend’s house for dinner” the only problem ever encountered was an empty bottle of wine, which was always easily solved. All three days were action packed from exploring the grounds at 6am, to driving around the Hluhluwe game reserve searching for the “Big Five”, having lunch with a wild Elephant at the Hilltop restaurant followed by a boat trip down the St. Lucia river watching the Hippo’s. We even managed to fit in a few hours of sun bathing and
snorkelling at Cape Vidal which was the most amazing beach I have ever visited, before heading back to Malala Lodge for our 7pm meal every night, which always finished the day off nicely.
Once again the time had flown by and it was time to leave Malala Lodge to head for our final destination of the holiday, Bay View Guest House in Amanzimtoti http://www.wheretostay.co.za/bayviewbnb/ but Matt had arranged a sneaky dive we could do on route at Umhlanga the wreck of the Fontao. I was shocked at how cold the water was. You could feel the temperature dropping by every meter you descended down the shot line, the visibility was not too good either and it was a small wreck but there were some very big shoals of fish all around it.
The last days diving was at the same centre in Scottburgh however the weather had turned and due to the run off from the rivers the visibility was about fifteen meters on the first dive and down to about ten meters by the end of the second at which point we ended the dive and headed back to our accommodation in Amanzimtoti for a bit of relaxation and our last evening meal in Durban.
All in all an excellent trip even though the diving was not as good as we were hoping for the animals in the game park, the food, service and company more than made up for it.. My only regret apart from not seeing any big sharks on our dives was the fact that I forgot to test the plughole theory! Oh well at least I have an excuse to go back but next time during the ‘sardine run’ when you are more likely to see the big stuff.
Matthew Oliver-Mayho
