Sodwana 2013

This year Sodwana 2013 trip was a prize that I won through a local magazine called “The Dive Site” with a photo of a pink klipfish eye. With the competition I also learned a valuable lesson, DO NOT delete your RAW/ Original files to safe space as this is needed for print. Now I do have a 2 TB drive for all my pics and backups.
We only had to get there to claim the prize. To do this we had to fly to Durban airport,
rent a car and drive the +-300 km to Sodwana. So we opted to extend the stay and bought 3 days extra with 5 dives as to go so far for only 3 days is really not worth it.
Coral divers were the sponsors so we stayed in their resort and did all the dives through them.
The resort itself is in the reserve so no need to go in and out the gate every morning and Coral also supplied a free transfer service to and from the beach each day. Accommodation was great and the food served also good. The pizza’s was the best. Cheaper accommodation and self-catering options is also available.

Diving in Sodwana 2013 for a Cape Town diver means 1 thing only. WARM blue water and then of course colour full fishies.
First dive was at 7am and 2nd just after 11am normally. As we left too early for breakfast a packed breakfast was send to the beach and as you come of the dive your breakfast was waiting.

9 of the 10 dives were done on 2 mile reef and 1 on 9 mile. The reef closer to the launch site is 2 mile and the further down the coast you go the miles on the reefs increase. 1 Club member Graeme also joined us on the dives and I did his PADI digital underwater Photography course on the trip as well. This is also a better way to do the course I think as you have so much more free time after the dives where you can download the pictures, discuss and edit them and then the following day try again. As with a shop environment the free time after a dive is not there.

9 Mile reef with the green coral tree was stunning with loads of fish life and even a couple of Nudibranchs crawling around. The different sites on 2 Mile is also great but my favourite is Bikini on the outskirts. Some of the young Coral dive masters unfortunately were not able to navigate us to all the nice things that can be seen on the reefs but we got back to the boat with loads of pictures so we did see some good things as well.
On 1 dive on the safety stop a school of ray’s game gliding past us which was really impressive. A couple of black tip sharks were spotted over the 5 days but no Mantas or whale sharks. The turtles chomping on the reef were also great to see.
Cape Town divers is spoiled by having slipway launches as the launches in Sodwana is Surf launches, meaning bumpy rides in and out through the surf and a bit of work to get the boat in the water.

In the park itself you could see loads of bird life some small buck early mornings and the naughty vervet monkeys stealing food where ever they can.

All in all we had a good week of diving with rest and relaxation in the afternoons. Thank you to The Dive Site and Coral Divers.