We were supposed to dive four days (two on Aliwal shoal, two days shark dives), but all dives were cancelled on day 3,
heavy winds caused rough seas. Diving conditions were ok, water was 22C and viz 12m or so.
We rented 5mm wetsuits. I caught a cold on day 1, and had trouble equalizing the rest of the trip. Here's the diving:
Day 1. Aliwal shoal. 2 dives, bith at Raggie cave.
Day 2. Aliwal shoal. 1 dive, Dropped in Raggie cave, swam to Cathedral.
Day 4. Shark dive.
So a total of four dives over four days?! We sometimes do four/day in Asia. Yet we were pretty tired each day,
since the boat ride is rough, and the water cold (though we didn't fight currents).
Part 2. Kruger safari From Durban, we flew into Nelspruit and then drove to the Grand Kruger Lodge, in Marloth park south of Kruger. We did two full-day drives in Kruger, and on one day we did a bush walk in the am, and then a night drive. This lodge turned out to be a reasonable choice; food was buffet-style, but the chef is pretty good. We stayed in the rooms called bush camp, but in reality were two-story huts with aircon and modern bathrooms and nice beds. So except for the 45min bumpy ride to and from Kruger's crocodile bridge gate each day, all was good. The Kruger national park itself turned out to be surprisingly good. The sheer abundance of wildlife is amazing; the scenery is superb.
Part 3. From Kruger we flew to Cape Town. On the first day there, we drove 2 hrs southeast to the coastal town on Gansbaai, touted as the Great White capital of S Africa. We'd booked to do a great white sighting and cage-dive tour with an operation called Shark adventures, whose website claims to run small-group tours. But they re-booked us with a cattle operator called Marine Dynamics out of Gansbaai, and operator I would not go with if they paid me. In any case, my feeling is that this entire great white tour thing is best avoided in the African summer months -- underwater visibility is low, the only operations running are in Gansbaai, and all boats look like tourist cattleships.
For the next three nights, we stayed in the excellent Westin Grand hotel in Cape Town. This gave us two full days to explore Cape town, but we were pretty travel-weary by now. On Day 1 we did a full-day guided tour of the cape peninsula, including jackass penguin viewing at Boulders beach, some gentle hiking near Cape of good hope, and a boat trip to Duicker Island to see the cape fur seal colonies. There are tons of operators doing this tour, and it's a good choice for first-timers since the guide gives out random trivia that would take forever to read up otherwise. On day 2 we drove to the lower cable station, and then hiked up the famous table mountain. Food is good in Cape Town. There are several decent touristy restaurants in the Victoria Harborfront (we tried Sevruga and Den Anker), which is a 15min walk from our hotel. It's also a pleasant place to spend some time.. reminiscent of the Fisherman's wharf in SF. There are many decent local restaurants (we tried the Fire Flies).
About the photos: The underwater photos were mainly taken by our new Canon G11 camera in the canon WP-DC34 housing, with my trusty old Inon Z220s strobe. Kitty used my older Canon G7 in its Canon housing. First impressions of the G11 are good. The photos above ground were mostly taken by a Canon 500D camera with a Canon 70-200 F4.0 L lens (made available kindly by my friend Pedro). I have grouped the photos in two sequences: the Underwater ones first (and including those from the great-white trip), followed by the Kruger and Cape town ones.
