Dive 2013

Righto so we left nice and early on Wednesday afternoon (about 15h30 ... a vast improvement on the last time!) and we made amazing time. We originally thought we'd stop for dinner in Ermelo, but pushed thru to Piet Retief and stopped for dinner at the Spur at about 7pm.

Not sure what time we got to The Dive Inn in Pongola, but it was straight to bed. The Trucker and @Toxic_Mouse woke up later to let in the rest of our convoy who'd only managed to leave Joburg just before 7pm.

We were up earlyish and had a quick Wimpy breakfast in Pongola and then were on our way. We had a bit of a longer journey to Sodwana because we trusted the gps which was supposed to be set to tar-roads only (although we were in the Pajero, the others were in a little i10). Needless to say we ended up trying a new shorter route and quickly found ourselves on some serious dirt roads. We turned back and took the old faithful route via Hluhluwe.

Needless to say we arrived at Mseni Lodge around midday. We had a pretty relaxing first day with a walk down to the dunes. A brief attempt at swimming, but it was too rough. And then we headed round to the bay-side for a swim instead. Much better :) Wow, I can't explain the difference being here off-season. It's so quiet, what a pleasure!

We headed back to the chalets and had a late afternoon Rib braai. Superb! What a fantastic first day :) And a cute little black kitty showed up along with the monkey's to inspect our food.

The next morning we were up at 6:30am to get ready for our first dive. We dived with Amoray again. Shew, today's 2 dives were very surge-y, lots of finning about. We dived Wayne's World and Simon's Cave. At least on Saturday our dive was much better. After a 73min first dive, The Trucker and I decided we were done diving for the weekend and skipped the second one. We dived 4 Bouy and honestly, it was probably easily in the top 5 dives I've done. Such an easy, smooth dive. Mostly just floating, being taken along the reef with the current. And really great viz. What we saw on each dive does blur a bit, but we saw 2 reef shark on the edge of viz (2 separate dives), a few moray eels (incl one swimming), some blue-spotted rays swimming and even a round ribbontail ray (which I've never seen before). Seriously, the coral was beautiful and the fish abundant on all of our dives. It was beautiful :)

The rest of our time was spent napping in the afternoons (with the cat on the bed even!) and swimming on the beach (sadly the wind came up a bit in the bay tho).

The Trucker and I had dinner out, just the 2 of us, at The Lighthouse on Friday evening. He had their fillet with the most delish Chocolate Chili sauce and I had their Prawn salad. We were saving ourselves for the pizza there with everyone on our last night's dinner there too. We went all out on Saturday evening and shared 5 of their delish pizzas! I think the Camembert was my favourite of the evening.

Oh, and in case you were wondering. We did have yet another surreal wildlife experience at Mseni ... just like last time! Haha. This time it wasn't bushbabies, it was mongooses. Seriously, we saw one, then another. Then they ran away. Then suddenly there were maybe 30 all heading our way. They were making their way under the bigger chalet (The Trucker and I were in a separate 2-sleeper, the others were in a 5-sleeper) which is where we were sitting having a drink at the time. The were quite curious and came quite close to look for food. And they had so many babies with them! It was quite amazing. Shew and the weird little squeeky noises they make! Haha.



The Trucker and I had a lazy Sunday morning while 3 of the others decided on one last dive ... And we accidentally adopted a kitten. Haha.

So yeah, that little black kitty who arrived on the first day never left. She stayed with us, following us around and even playing in our chalet when we were there and napping with us on Saturday afternoon. Seems she picked a new Mom and Dad. So on Saturday The Trucker started throwing out the idea of taking her home with us ... I said okay, but only if we asked the Lodge owners and made sure she didn't actually belong to someone there and was just playing with the guests.

As soon as we walked in and asked the guy behind the desk, he was like "If you want her, please take her!". He thinks she came from a settlement outside the reserve. A German couple there a few weeks ago did try to adopt her and got in touch with the SPCA and all, but they couldn't take her to Germany with them ... so she stayed. And just like that, it was decided. He gave us a cardboard box and we drove 6.5hrs home with her sleeping. Okay so she did cry for a little while, she is a generally chatty cat, but as soon as she got some attention she quietened down and slept. Shew. We own a cat now.

Seriously, it was a total accident. But she seems happy to be home. The Trucker is taking her to the vet this morning to get her looked over, she probably need a tick-dip and to get her chipped. We need to find out about vaccinations and sterilisation. We think she's about 4months old. I'm wondering how we introduce the bunnies ... although there are plenty of stories of bunny-cat bonding online. I'm worried cause Lily already seems skeptical (she came inside last night and could clearly smell something that made her nervous). Fingers crossed.

Oh, and she needs a name too. We're trying out Padi at the moment ...

So yes, it was a pretty fantastic weekend. And no, I didn't have to worry too much about the impact of the other people ... there was a little bit of a wobbly early on, but things soon got settled :) Have I told you how much I absolutely love this boyfriend of mine <3 Completely adore him, I do! And now we have a pet together ... eep. I woke up a little panic-y this morning about responsibility and life and all ... I think it's just back-to-work jitters after such a lovely break.