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Published: March 15th 2015
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I'm in the lounge of another airport, so I guess it's time to write a new blog before heading on 3 different planes back home, for a total of 16 hours in planes in the coming hours. I just spent two very nice weeks in Congo...and lucky me, after the demonstrations back end of January, the country is nearly back to normal...as much as we could consider a normal situation in Congo! They had simply no access to internet for few days...and no skype or social medias for more than two weeks. Try to operate a business these day without internet...and no SMS either!
So after Congo...I go South twice a year for some diving, golfing...and yes, some pretty nice wine, food, and more importantly, friends! This time, as you could read the title, it was a little different. Few years ago while trying to find some info about diving in Argentina, I came across the blog of Elvina. Written in french, Elvina is currently working for MSF (Doctors without borders), and she has dived everywhere...and organized all that diving on her own....and when I write everywhere, I mean it!
We had share info about
few places, from Puerto Pyramides to Rangiora or Santa Catalina...and few weeks ago I received a little message from Elvina asking me about info on diving South Africa and Mozambique. I asked her when she was going...and it matched my dates...so here are few pictures of the diving with Elvina and her friend Catherine. Fun to meet like this...she is French, living in Brussels, I'm Belgian living in Bangkok...and we had our first encounter in South Africa! It's a small world!
As usual....there was some wind in Shelly Beach, so I could only dive two days of the three I had planned! So four cool dives on the program, and some very funny moments. Like the time I find out...on the boat, that I forgot all my gears...yes it does happen! Maybe I was simply too relax that morning...and than the episode of which I do not have a picture...going to buy orchids for Michelle, the Dive Master who nicely let me use her gears. As we go back to base between the two dives...I had time to go to Shelly Beach shopping Center....have you already seen somebody walking in a wet suit...with dive computer...crossing a packed
shopping mall on a Saturday lunch time, with a pot of orchids in his hands. Trust me, I received few smiles! And Michelle was surprised and happy!
The diving this time was pretty much...black ribbon tail rays...few of them...and Zambezis. But more than the Zams...I saw two nudibranches....we laughed a lot about it, I never spotted one here...and you do no come to dive Protea Bank for them, you dive for the Zams! These are bull sharks...we spent a lot of time with them. Sadly, they are not as curious as the Oceanic Black tips...which I didn't had any proper encounter with this time. The bull sharks are still pretty big...and if you ask, yes they are killers...but here, on Protea Bank, while in the blue, they just check the divers...and we love them!
So beside the diving, there is the golfing too...and I finally shoot a little 77...not done this for a while. With the rand getting even lower, a round of golf here, on a top golf course, is just around 20usd...and if you do need a golf cart, like you have to use one in Wild Coast golf course, it's only
35usd...I love this place! This time, I play Selborne, Wild Coast, Southbroom and Margate...and yes...the weather was...as usual, amazing!
So beside divers, dives and golf....there was the usual wine...and some great food too! Why am I not moving here?? I know...I know the reason...but trust me, this place will be my home one of these days...imagine, diving, golfing, friends and amazing wine...all that, available all the time...for close to nothing! And I haven't even speak of the price of lobster in season!
This trip I also spent some time to discover a little further....got the info on Oribi Gorge, went for dinner at Flavours in Ramsgate...and got more info for the next adventure...as in just over three months, I'm coming back here...not alone...and probably for a first for Protea Bank...but that's in three months....more fun before this on the program...and for now, I'm going home! And that sound pretty good too!
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D MJ Binkley
Dave and Merry Jo Binkley
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