>Iam hoping to visit Northern S Africa in August, probably >Sodwana Bay or Mozambique. > >Anyone been there and got any recommendations > Sodwana is great. It is about 70KM on a dirt road through a National Park to get there. The accommodation is varied depending on where you stay. The dive guides were not overly experienced. The closer you get to the start point the worse the reefs are. i would recommend 6 and 9 mile reefs. I would suggest you take all the beer you need as the local shop is quite expensive. The advice we got was don't stop from the tarmac (metalled) road till you arrive - sound advice at the time and I cant imagine it is any different now. You are actually going through Kwazulu most of the time. Some friends of mine have been to Mozambique and dived recently. They caught some unspeakable disease/bug (from the mattress!). It used to be real frontier diving but the South Africans have been going there for some while. Unfortunately they are largely made up of Aqua biffs so the coral has probably been kicked to H--- by now. The thing about all S. African Diving is the SPECTACULAR boat driving. Don't take anything that you don't really want or is not insured (they usually have a locker for Cameras) as occasionally they make a mistake otherwise it is a real bronco ride!!! Sadly they get in the habit of driving up the beach at 30 knots and so do it when it is not not necessary now that is not so much fun. Don Collier