misteroverland

Look away now if you have no interest in diving :-DWell we moved on from Tofo to Guinjata bay – all of about 15km down the coast and guess what, we continued to dive. From there we eventually made it down to Porta do Ouro (about 10km North of the SA border), thankfully we also managed to extend Kevin’s visa. Diving here has been amazing not only do we feel that our diving has improved, let’s be honest the volume that we are doing it would be hard pressed to go the other way!!! We have also learned so much about the marine fish, mammals and critters. I have a new fascination with nudibranchs and cowries and anything that is micro. I have also taken up underwater photography – I have a log way to go of buoyancy control and light understanding before I post any of those photos though. 

 

 
Porto do Ouro is known for shark diving and though we arrived rather late on Saturday night having assisted some frenchies in a 2 wheel drive hire car (where we are is a massive dune system so sand driving is the order of the day) and a wally in a land cruiser who had no idea where the 4×4 button was never mind how low range worked! We did make it onto a dive first thing on Sunday morning, the dive was called Pinnacles and is rather famous for shark diving. Though wildlife, like kids , doesn’t always do what you want it to do so we launched with our expectations In check, though we were treated to one of the most spectacular dives ever. We saw bull shark which circled under us several times, black tip shark coming in from the side and then as we were hanging in the black water (basically can’t see the bottom or the top) along came a shoal of 50+ hammer heads. It’s funny because the thought never crosses your mind that these are violent animals and you should be careful, they are majestic beings which are highly evolved to their environment. That dive is something that will stay with me for life.

Diving here is not all about shark and we have seen heaps of different things, the team we have been diving with has a passion for the small stuff too so I now find myself ignoring the fish and looking for see-through shrimp, sea moths which are so well camouflaged to the sandy bottom and other critters. It’s a real wonder to look at a piece of coral and then suddenly see within it’s folds a cowrie about 1cm long or a baby Toby again about a 1cm long. We went looking for seahorse the other day and found a juvenile lion fish which you could fit onto your thumb nail. Today the beach was littered with blue bottles,I have in the past had a fear of these stinging jelly fish though today I found a sea swallow eating their tentacles, this is a type of nudibranch so do doubt in future I might find myself digging around in their tentacles rather than dismissing them. Diving over the last few weeks has really opened my eyes to the wonderful, peculiar and often bizarre critters of the oceans. We have also surpassed 60 dives so will probably pursue a dive master course when we return to the UK. I think I am even willing to brave the cold waters!!!

 

  
Tomorrow we head for SA, while it is a real turning point and we can’t deny that it feels like the home stretch we still a have a couple weeks to explore areas of SA that I have not been to since I was a kid. We will also try and do a night in Swaziland and Lesotho, so technically we still have 3 countries to go before the end – that makes it sound so much better 😀

Oh and we have finally solved the landrover vs. land cruiser debate … If you don’t know how to drive it and don’t know how to fix bit, it’s the wrong one!!!
We hope this finds everyone well. Lots of love S&K x