Our last couple of nights have been spent in the little village of Umkomaas, just south of Durban. It's a pleasant little place with the main attraction being 'Aliwal Shoal' a reef about 5k out to sea. Aliwal Shoal is reportedly one of the top 10 dive sites in the world so could not really be missed.

We were up early on our first morning to join a dive over the reef, this was to be my first sea dive and I was a little nervous. A short boat ride through the surf took us to the reef where we were soon rolling backwards off the boat and making our descent. Mine was as un-elegant as ever, bum first and feet in the air - something I thought I'd mastered in Malawi but apparently not. Clearly something I need a little more work on. Ah well we were soon on our way. Unfortunately visibility was not fantastic, only 5 meters and the current extremely strong meaning we drifted about 1.4k in 40 minutes. Despite that we were treated to an immense array of aquatic life, beautiful angel fish, huge honeycomb sting ray and most importantly a ragged tooth shark.James took part in two more dives on our last morning and was lucky enough to see about 14 sharks and a turtle. Never fear, we were assured the sharks couldn't eat us. We were both rather reassured when the dive master told us that if we could dive in those conditions then we should be able to dive anywhere in the world. Hopefully the Philippines will be a breeze.

Tomorrow it's off to Durban to sample their local delicacy, 'bunny chow', curry in a hollowed out bit of bread. Yes you've guessed it our trip if very much centred around consumption of food.