Wow, how time is flying! I can't believe that it is already time for me to make my way to Jo'berg and to dare another trip on a bus. This time I plan to be prepared and make a quick stop in a KFC or maybe even the local Chicken Licken – well, OK, maybe not. Hopefully since it is a day trip and only 7 hours, I won't have the “welcome to the fast food grease pit” thing going on again.
So, what have I been up to the past few days...well after a second wonderful night in the Mantis and Moon Oasis, we got another early start and headed back to Umkomaas to do some more diving (Payson dived the day before). Ok, wait, before I go on, I am sure some grammar police somewhere is saying that I should use the word “dove” not “dived”, well after the dive in Zanzibar with the rest of my overlander friends, we got into a debate about this. The Canadians said “dove” and the American (me) said “dove” but the Brits said “dived”. Given that it was such a heated debate, one of the the Canadians went out and did a little research and discovered that when diving, as in scuba diving or diving off a diving board, one should say “dived” but in other instances the word “dove” is appropriate. Go figure. If anyone else has any other thoughts, please feel free to jump on in!
OK, back to my story, we headed to the dive shop to dive the Aliwal Shoal, about 60kms South of Durban off the coast of a little town called Umkomaas. Will and Payson both decided to do the shark dive, which entailed going out on a boat, chumming the water (dropping in a canister with some chopped up fish) and then waiting. Once the sharks appeared, they all jumped in and hovered at about 12 meters watching for as long as they wanted or as long as their air lasted. Payson said it was the most peaceful dive he had ever done, meanwhile Will said it was a bit freaky and that he was “on guard” the entire time. I opted out of the shark dive and went the more benign route diving just the shoal itself, which was still known to have a sharks running around (the ones that run off to check out the chumming), over a thousand different fish species and beautiful soft coral.
It was quite a frantic dive experience. Not sure how great the operator was as they didn't as a single one of us to see our dive cards. Sort of an important thing. Equipment getting was like running around a grocery store with unnamed aisles trying to pick up bits but not getting them the first time round. Basically they said, “OK, go back there and get your equipment” and a guy handed you part of it, but not all and then you had scavenge around to find the rest. Then there was getting the wet suit, which they seemed to be short of and kept insisting that super large ones would work just fine for some while cramming other people into suits one size too small. Will swears that when he peed, it had no way out of the suit and so he had to unzip under water and try to flush his suit out with water. I can only imagine what that looked like.
Once set, having put my equipment together completely unsupervised and unchecked, everything was loaded into a truck and taken down to the river mouth so that we could jump in the boat and shoot out to sea. They did not have a pier to launch from so we had to start in the river and time the waves that were crashing in to get out to sea. It was quite a wild ride and I am sure my sis would have been green in the face and proving the fishies with some food before we even made it past the first wave. It didn't get much calmer once we were out at sea and we were faced with big rolling, stomach dropping waves. Then, finally were were there and the following instructions were given, “Put on your mask, get in, and go!”. Normally the boat captain or dive master checks to make sure you are in the water OK before heading to the bottom, but well, before I knew it, all fins were in the air and we were heading down. I have never felt a current like this one. I think I sucked half my tank down in the first five minutes while trying to find something to grab on to so that I could orient myself. To speak in Sus' words (my first tent mate on the overland trip), “I had to take myself aside and have a little word with myself”. In this case, to convince myself that I could breath, it would be OK, and we were just waiting for everyone to get down, which was taking some time as someone had to go back up, and then we would float nicely along with the current and not fight against it. In these moments, I did also manage to think about the horror my dear auntie Jane would feel seeing nine people clinging to coral covered rocks at the bottom of the ocean. It was such a crazy current I am amazed that I was able to hold on as long as I did.
The coral did bite back, however, and now I have a few nice scrapes on my wrists and fingers that are reminding me again and again not to touch the sea life. I did mention to the dive master that I was surprised as most dive masters state very clearly that you are not to touch things and he agreed but also said that well, not too many people were out there so, it wouldn't do too much damage. Yeah, right, not too many people, just 7 dive shops that go out five times a day with six to eight people on each boat. Sigh...The rest of the dive was lovely though and we were whisked along the shoal almost from the top to the bottom in about an hour covering approximately 2.5km. Amazing, huge, fat starfish, a couple sea turtles (also fighting the current - to get food), and loads of fishies. No sharks though, as they were all down with the other boat at the far end of the shoal. Definitely a nice place to dive.
After that we grabbed a quick bite and headed up the coast toward Durban and the Hippo Hide. I am still amazed at all of the people standing on the side of the road trying to hitch somewhere or the other. They make signs with their hands or hold a piece of paper with a few letters on it to indicate where they are going. In many cases they hold out a bit of money to indicate that they are willing to pay for the ride. The roads are most packed during the morning commute and at those times, you often see people dressed as they are going in to office jobs. Will managed to flip one of them off, which was quite funny. The guy was holding up a finger to indicate where he was going and Will thought he was flipping us off so flipped him off. Payson and I were both a bit shocked and Payson said “What the hell was that for Will?” and Will replied, “Wasn't he giving us the bird?” We both burst into laugher and said, “ugh, no, he was indicating that he wanted a ride”. We all laugh about it now and every time we see someone holding up a finger, ask Will if he wants to flip that guy a bird as well.
Today was a bit of a sad day as my great adventure with Will and Payson has come to an end. Will hopped on his Baz Bus up to Swaziland this morning leaving Payson and I to wander around Durban until Payson also had to leave, heading for the airport to catch his flight back to the states. We had a great Indian meal last night as our “last supper” as Durban is known for having a bit of an Indian flair to it. Supposedly it has the largest Indian population outside of India. Whether or not that is really true, I don't know but by the looks of the people on the street and the people running the shops, I'd go for a “Yes”. It is a very strange city, the downtown almost completely black and Indian but surrounded by quiet peaceful areas full of little shopping malls and the more fortunate who live there. It is loud and dirty and chaotic but supposedly has beautiful beaches that people flock to in the summer (I haven't seen them yet).
And on that note, I am going to return to my book – A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian – don't ask....
No comments:
Post a Comment