From one home...to the next...

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Tourism is slightly on the way to recovery...and international divers are therefore back to our little village. I thought...been a long time since I haven't posted any pictures of my diving at home. So here we are...a little diving post!

As tourism is not only on the road to recovery here, but all over the world, my lovely wife has also been able to find a new mission as Commercial Director of a top hotel on a new island for us...but that's coming in the next blog. I'm writing this from a lovely little room with a lovely view of our new surrounding. Next blog coming soon!

We are not leaving Shelly Beach! We are just going to be a lot less here over the coming months and maybe years. Why do I love so much this place that I do call today home? Simple....first the people are just super special! Next...once you find a place where you encounter everything that you need to make you happy and fulfilled, it's easy to call it home. Beside the people, for me, there is the golf, the diving, the amazing produces you find in most supermarkets...and yes, the wine that we are shipping from Cape Town area.



We live a pretty simple life here. Early up...and most evening, pretty early in bed too. Here it's all about the outdoors. Imagine, we may have an average of three days of rain per month, not much more. Not everything is perfect neither! South Africa has been suffering from loadshedding on a pretty intense manner since the beginning of 2022. What is loadsheeding? Europeans...do read this. When a country doesn't produce enough electricity for his population of 60 millions...it simply cut the power on an area rotational basis for few hours everyday. It start with the pretty manageable level 2, with two hours per day...to the not fun at all level 6, where power is off in blocks of 2 hours, for 6 to 8 hours per day! Not fun! And we had at least level 2 for a good majority of the year...



As we knew we were soon to be on the move, we didn't invest in any type of equipment allowing us to restore some of this power during loadshedding. Good news is...shopping malls do have generators...and you do not need electricity while playing golf or diving! It's always important to stay positive.



As of today, golf wise, I've already been lucky to play 40 different courses in 2022, with a total of above 90 rounds....not that bad at all, isn't it! But this is not about golf today, more about the diving!



Protea Banks is 8kms at sea away from Shelly Beach. It's an area of around 7kms on 700 meters with a huge drift. Meaning, we cross some/most of it on any dive. It is also one of the top places in the world to encounter sharks.



In these pictures, you'll see the blue sharks that we encountered end of April. This is a little further from Protea Banks...and if you are interested, can be organized on a special basis.



Than we have the Protea Banks sharks, I call, depending of the season...oceanic Black tips, Bull sharks, Raggies, Tiger sharks, Guitar sharks, scalloped hammer heads, greater hammerheads as well as few dusky. From June till end of October...we do also have the chance to encounter humpback whales on scuba. Trust me, this is something special and that I have today the chance of having encountered close to 20 times around here. For anything diving, the people to go with here are Aquaplanet!



Enjoy the pictures....next entry will involve some diving too...but way less sharks!

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