Durban, September 11th

Hello,

So we haven't actually left Durban, but hey it's been pretty chilled! I am in fact writing at the same computer, in the same net cafe, in downtown Durban.

The last 5 days have been an action packed roller coaster of spending and frankly all concept of a budget has gone out the window. Me and Jordan spent a happy day wandering around Durban, taking in the Indian Market on Victoria street, assorted shopping centres and the town hall, before emerging out onto the beach front and hitting up the massive new sea world at Ushaka theme park. We spent the afternoon watching penguins, turtles and ragged tooth sharks being fed and generally had fun looking around the vast underwater world! As a result of the park being so good we were late back to the hostel where we met a thoroughly unimpressed Nick.

The next day we took it easy, rising around 11, before heading into Durban so Nick could have a look around. A good day was had by all and we ended up at Safari surfboards, the factory of Spider Surfboards and while Nick was ordering custom made boards I even met legendary shaper Spider Murphy(?) himself, apparently he is famous... Thanks has to go to Duane (doo-ann if you are Welsh and can't read) from Safari who gave us a lift 30km out of town, as we were not exactly looking forward to trying to find a taxi in central Durban after nightfall

Arriving back at the hostel we had the first of many Braiis and cooked up a storm with Boerwurst being the choice of meat, before hitting the hay in anticipation of a great few days diving on Aliwal shoal.

At dive fever Nick and Jordan had elected to take their open water dive courses, while I decided to take my Nitrox and Rescue diver conversion courses. This I did not realise involved a lot of workbooks so while the others splashed about in the pool, I sat and did dive table calculations or basic first aid questions. Eventually I was allowed to join the others in the pool, only to discover it was freezing! That night not feeling like cooking, we had a healthy meal of biscuits, chips, burgers, chocolate, crisps and for some reason salad. It was delicious and I'm not even sorry!

More diving adventures were scheduled for the next day and we all took the opportunity to hit the ocean proper. I wasn't really awake for my first dive at 7am, but despite shocking visibility (it was like diving in England, only with fish present) I saw the awesomness of a 3 metre ragged tooth shark along with copious other aquatic wildlife, including turtles, huge brindlebass and more aggressive clown fish; Finding Nemo could well be the most misleading film of all time as the angry little hermaphrodites go for you if you get anywhere near them. The second dive was again epic with plenty of fish and cool looking rock formations around, but the water is really, really cold out here!

Nick and Jordan also had an awesome day, seeing ragged tooth sharks, dolphins, flying fish, clown fish and too many amazing fish to list! They also managed to complete all of their open water sea skills in one day leaving them one fun dive the next day, I could accompany them on to get my Rescue conversion and some laps of the pool for punishment against mistakes made over the course. That night we all slept well and dreamed of fish...

Bright and breezy we again wandered in to Dive Fever, not really knowing what was going on, but we were soon woken up by the awesome boat journey on which we saw flying fish, minkie whales and even got within 5 metres of southern right whales before they swam under the boat. Eventually we made it to the shoal and despite the dive instructor's assurances to Jordi that it was the wrong time of year to see Manta Rays, we dived down straight onto four huge specimens! The ensuing dive was a fourty minute ocean Safari with a massive profusion of fish, lobsters, nudibranchs, moray eels and most other aquatic species present. After I did my rescue qualifications we raced our rib across to
a tiger shark feeding boat and despite certain people being more than a little afraid, because aparently bright fins attract the sharks! We had a snorkel with lots of dusky and blacktip sharks which also are attracted by the bait. We headed back satisfied and all passed our respective exams first time before a large celebratory braii to end our time at Blue Sky Minning Backpackers.

Me and Nick are currently staying in the Florida district of Durban, at the "party hostel of South Africa," Tekweni, in order to pick up the surfboards and 20/20 world cup semi-final tickets!! While Jordi is heading down the coast to our next stop Coffee bay where hopefully we will rendevouz tommorow!

LOL

Jx