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If you have the good sense to live on the North Coast, you probably realise it opens up a wonderful world of fantastic golf courses, game reserves and beaches. But there is more. Great as all that is, it’s nothing compared to what lies under the ocean a few metres offshore.
Why dive?
There is nothing on earth quite as relaxing as floating weightless in warm, clear water surrounded by thousands of colourful reef fish that flit in and out of your field of vision. You are rocked gently by the ocean, and you hear nothing except the sound of your own breathing and perhaps the quiet, mysterious clicking of some reef creature. Or even – in late winter and spring – the haunting songs of humpback whales. Scuba diving is the closest you can get to meditation without crossing your legs, and the effect lasts. It will be a good hour or so after surfacing from a dive before you remember … whatever (now seemingly trivial) day-to-day issue was bothering you before.
So, if you live on the North Coast, you really should take the plunge. It’s easier than you think.
Is diving for everyone?
In previous decades scuba diving was reserved for macho techno-geeks who could strip a demand valve underwater, and carry 20kg of gear uphill wearing a wetsuit. Okay, slight exaggeration, but – thanks to improvements in equipment – diving has become far more accessible. If you’re in good health and you’re not pathologically claustrophobic, you’re probably fit to dive. You’ll need to do a medical before you take the plunge, anyhow.
How safe is diving?
It’s really safe and easy if you go about it the right way. But please note, there is an ‘if’ in that sentence. If you go about it the wrong way, it can be very unsafe indeed. But it is easy. You just need to learn a few simple skills and then you can explore the reefs and check out the pretty fishies.
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How do you make it happen?
Find a good dive school. Ask around and – most importantly – when you find one, ask for references. If they can’t refer you to past students who are still diving a year after they finished the course, steer clear. Seriously. This is to save time and money – and possibly your life. As mentioned earlier, the skills you need to learn in order to dive safely are easy skills. You can learn them in an afternoon – and some dive schools pride themselves on their quick turnover, and claim they can teach you to dive in three days. Yes they can.
But those easy (and they really are easy) skills are also counterintuitive. So, while they are easy to learn and perform under controlled conditions, you need lots of repetition to override your natural instinct to do exactly the opposite in an emergency.
Yes repetition is important. It can be boring, and it takes up valuable time while you’re doing it, just as it takes up valuable space on this page. But it’s worth it.
Try to find a course close to your home where you can practise the basic skills in short sessions over a few weeks, rather than repeat them all in one go. This way, the chances are greater that you will still be diving a year down the line, and won’t end up one of the thousands of people who do a quickie dive course and have a few fun dives, but don’t become sufficiently confident to become … divers. Real divers. Check all the ‘hardly used’ second-hand scuba gear on Gumtree if you don’t believe me.
Unplugged
While scuba diving is great, snorkelling – or free diving – is gaining in popularity. It requires less equipment and preparation, so it really does add an extra dimension of freedom, and it’s a great way to introduce kids to the ocean. Unlike scuba diving, there are no regulations that prevent you from snorkelling without training, but it’s worth learning the basic skills with someone who knows what they’re doing.
Finding Nemo
There are loads of beautiful clownfish just like Nemo on almost all the North Coast and Maputaland reefs – as well as all the other colourful fish featured in the movie. But, while the North Coast is great, Maputaland is sublime. The coral reefs here are some of the most southerly in the world, and they form part of the awesome iSimangaliso Wetland Park, where you can watch birds, see big game, check out baby turtles hatching, dive, surf, paddle and more – reef, ocean, beach, bush and beautiful wetlands. What’s not to love?
