Sodwana is one of South Africa’s premium spearfishing destinations. As an experience, it’s about as close to diving Mozambique as you can find, but with a fraction of the hassle and cost. As you can imagine, we get quite a few requests for information on where and how to spearfish up at Sodwana. And it’s not just absolute beginners who are asking – seasoned spearo’s doing their home work, trying to hone their dive strategies for the area, are also eager for knowledge.

The reality is, Sodwana is a maze of reefs that stretch over a dive area of more than 60km and even trying to make sense of the smallest of reefs can lead to frustration. Due to the vast expanse of reefs and diveable areas, changing conditions (like currents, tides and different seasons) are variables that make a spot a boiling mass of fish one day and an absolute desert the next.

I have been diving Sodwana for almost 20 years and it is only in the past few years that I have started to dive the area effectively. I’ve picked the brains of various people on the where and how to dive the area, and have gleaned a lot of knowledge in this way.

While up in Zululand one recent weekend, I went for a morning launch on the Sunday, the aim being a quick dive to get a fish for a planned fish braai later. I also took the family along for the ride. There were 8 of us in the boat – myself, my wife, our 2 little girls aged 4 and 6, my sister, brother in-law, a dive buddy and his girlfriend. Needless to say it was pretty crowded – but as can be seen from the events that followed, nothing was going to stand in the way of my luck that day!

I am not a religious soul. But, there are moments in life where certain tragedy is avoided thanks to what can only be referred to as the Hand of God.