Sodwana Bay

[xyrandomyx]

I don't know if any of the other South Africans will be online at this time of year, but I'll give this a shot anyway. I'm off to Sodwana Bay next Friday for six nights and five days of diving. Does anyone who's dived there have any tips, recommendations, advice for me? Anything at all, really, that you think might be useful to know, diving or general. I'll have a rental car and accommodation and bookings already made with dive op.

 

[shortdivemedic]

No but looking forward to you posting a reveiw as we will be there in feb

Cheers
Michael

 

[PsyWulf]

Bring mozzie nets and repellants. The local spar is quite well stocked usually so no need to overpack provisions. Bring seasick tabs in case the winds act up a bit. Clearly mark your gear and anything you dont want abused you take up or down to the beach yourself. Take a few bucks extra cash every day for gate entry and to pay guys to carry your kit to the beach and back. Showers near the beach but generally undrinkable water so bring water bottles for the dives

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[xyrandomyx]

Bring mozzie nets and repellants. The local spar is quite well stocked usually so no need to overpack provisions. Bring seasick tabs in case the winds act up a bit. Clearly mark your gear and anything you dont want abused you take up or down to the beach yourself. Take a few bucks extra cash every day for gate entry and to pay guys to carry your kit to the beach and back. Showers near the beach but generally undrinkable water so bring water bottles for the dives

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Great, thanks. I have most of that covered. I must still mark my gear -- I've been meaning to do that for a while.

---------- Post added December 30th, 2013 at 09:53 AM ----------

No but looking forward to you posting a reveiw as we will be there in feb

Cheers
Michael

Excellent. I'll post a review when I'm back the week after next. There are a few other South Africans who lurk on this forum who can probably give you more info than I can, so post questions if you have any. Just do it further in advance than I did -- most of them only check in every now and then.

 

[PsyWulf]

Excellent. I'll post a review when I'm back the week after next. There are a few other South Africans who lurk on this forum who can probably give you more info than I can, so post questions if you have any. Just do it further in advance than I did -- most of them only check in every now and then.

Indeed fire away with questions,i've dived there enough

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[widget]

I have been diving in Sodwana since the early 80's when you pretty much needed a 4x4 just to get to the Sodwana Camp entrance gate the road was that bad, and the only access to the beach was over a sand dune and through the river, you needed a good 4x4 with an air intake snorkel to drive through the river if you wanted to get your vehicle onto the beach,...... or you had to swim with your gear over the river if your vehicle couldn't drive through it. Tank fills were done on the sports field miles away and a shop, showers or even water on the beach was a distant wish, we used a military Unimog to push the boat into the water and running beach repairs were common, the camp was rudimentary, they often ran out of petrol at the filling station and the little shop at the camp sold only the basics like three day old bread, Sunscreen, nitrogen frozen meat and UHT processed milk.

The reef's however were pristine and the fish life incredible, and I am pleased to say this is still mostly the case.

PsyWulf's suggestions are pretty much spot on for a modern 2014 Sodwana visit, not much extra I could add except maybe to emphasize watching your gear, sadly theft is rife these days.

I also dont allow the dive staff to wash my gear, maybe I am just old school, but in my opinion they dont take care of it, and its where most gear mix ups occur, besides it only takes a few minutes of your time under the post dive shower.
I also find personal cylinders tend to get used by everyone, often its just mistaken identity so mark your own cylinder well, stick stickers on it so its easily identifiable as yours personally or you may find its already out on a dive when you go looking for it.

 

[xyrandomyx]

I'm back from my trip, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I can now personally confirm that the info from the other posters is correct (not that I didn't believe them, but now I've seen it myself).

I'll just add one point on the non-diving side of things: There are two places to buy supplies. Silversands, inside the park and Mbazwana Spar in the town a few kilometres from the park/ beach. The former is open later on weekends. If you're staying outside the park, you're going to want to remember to go there straight after your dives or tell the guys at the gate that you'll be coming back, or you're going to have to pay to get in again later.

The vis wasn't at it's best, but I knew that December wasn't supposed to be the best month for vis (February is supposed to be much better, I think May is supposed to be even more so). And since I'm used to Cape Town's often rather murky water, it still seemed quite spectacular to me. The marine life was interesting: quite a mix of the more robust-looking, dull-coloured fish that you'd expect in colder waters as well as plenty of the brightly-coloured tropical reef fish. I've only ever seen one or the other at a dive site before. I presume it's because Sodwana Bay is so far south and the water temperatures are lower than tropical locations.

I was unfortunately 'that guy' -- I used someone's personal tank by mistake on one dive. I was a little irritated with the dive op, since I asked twice whether I could take any one of the cylinders from the pile, and missed the dot of nail varnish that someone had added to the valve to mark it as their own. I suggest marking things a little more clearly than that (unless you're not fussed with a mixup) -- the cylinders with people's names on them were nice and obvious and impossible to take by mistake.

 

[widget]

I'm back from my trip, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I can now personally confirm that the info from the other posters is correct (not that I didn't believe them, but now I've seen it myself).

I'll just add one point on the non-diving side of things: There are two places to buy supplies. Silversands, inside the park and Mbazwana Spar in the town a few kilometres from the park/ beach. The former is open later on weekends. If you're staying outside the park, you're going to want to remember to go there straight after your dives or tell the guys at the gate that you'll be coming back, or you're going to have to pay to get in again later.

The vis wasn't at it's best, but I knew that December wasn't supposed to be the best month for vis (February is supposed to be much better, I think May is supposed to be even more so). And since I'm used to Cape Town's often rather murky water, it still seemed quite spectacular to me. The marine life was interesting: quite a mix of the more robust-looking, dull-coloured fish that you'd expect in colder waters as well as plenty of the brightly-coloured tropical reef fish. I've only ever seen one or the other at a dive site before. I presume it's because Sodwana Bay is so far south and the water temperatures are lower than tropical locations.

I was unfortunately 'that guy' -- I used someone's personal tank by mistake on one dive. I was a little irritated with the dive op, since I asked twice whether I could take any one of the cylinders from the pile, and missed the dot of nail varnish that someone had added to the valve to mark it as their own. I suggest marking things a little more clearly than that (unless you're not fussed with a mixup) -- the cylinders with people's names on them were nice and obvious and impossible to take by mistake.

- Ha, Ha, dont feel too bad, the big pile of cylinders they just dump on the beach can be very confusing at the best of times, all yellow and all look pretty much the same, it can happen to anyone.

These days Sodwana has so many operators and camp sites I was wondering where you stayed and who you dived with, I have pretty much used them all but these days mostly dive and stay with Sodwana Bay Lodge, if they are full Coral Divers are usually able to take you.

Anyway, just thought you may like to know how much it cost and who did were the diving operators in Sodwana in 1984, well as attached it cost R35.00 per day and was run by Jimmy and Margo (International dive tours) I still have some old pictures and their catalogs of us diving with them in my collection, this is just one of them, notice the old Unimog to launch the boat and the very (in those days) luxurious camping.....

Aaah, well......!

 

[xyrandomyx]

Haha! I particularly like the bit about requiring an SPG and BCD. I wonder if any old-timers mumbled and grumbled about being forced to buy new fancy gear just to dive Sodwana?

 

[widget]

Haha! I particularly like the bit about requiring an SPG and BCD. I wonder if any old-timers mumbled and grumbled about being forced to buy new fancy gear just to dive Sodwana?

Yup, and they had proper Jacket type BC's, very upmarket and modern, seeing as most of us who used BC's were still using the old horse collar type with twin tanks and a J Valve. .....many didn't even use a BC.

SPG and Depth Gauge??..........most of us had ONLY heard of them, never really seen one!