The automated, physiological response to an unexpected, wet-sounding thud; especially when that thudding emanates somewhere close to your left foot, is an inhalation of life at its best.
South Africa's Sodwana Bay is, arguably, the world's premier dive site. For the guest, not glued to the beach, it's the gateway to a surf & turf excursion esp. if travelers take advantage of the world-class game reserves close-by. Although we haven't seen a White Shark in the area, others have. Include the cetaceans, whale sharks & mantas, and it's possible to see Africa's terrestrial and aquatic megafauna in a day's excursion. We return here, most years, for the shallow-water diving and some offshore game-fishing. We will, however, remember the trip for its surprises rather than the reef's nudis or even the singing reels.
Most of us are anatomically ill-equipped to breathe under-da-sea; in our naked splendour that is... Notwithstanding the sunburn-risk associated with that image, with the correct apparatus, specific training and some application, the wonders of the ocean's depths reveal themselves, even if only in small hourly increments.
The marine ecosystem is a complex, interconnected web of life. It's stunningly beautiful & will kill-ya in the blink of an eye; given half the chance. We're trespassers in this forbidden paradise even if we justify the intrusion as our right of exploration. In that context then visibility on this particular dive was excellent; the current at the sea-floor, benign. Both those variables make for an intriguing dive.
Our planned dive descended to a depth which required a safety stop ie: we were diving too deep to surface without stopping at a shallower depth to avoid DCS [decompression] as we ascended / depressurised. Simultaneously, our dive also skirted the depth where occasionally men-bark-at-fish ie: suffer from gas narcosis. Narcosis is uncommon & described as a state of drunkenness. ie: the impairment of mental function caused by the inhalation of certain gases under elevated pressures. Crowing like a rooster, whilst strutting your stuff on stage, under hypnosis, is one thing. An equally involuntary performance underwater is more permanent particularly if the performer removes their breathing apparatus, backstage. To ameliorate the risks & improve safety most divers dive in twos. My eldest son would accompany me on the dive.
A pre-dive safety check includes the confirmation of free-flowing air from the gas cylinder to the regulator second stage [ie: mouthpiece]. My son failed to open his gas cylinder fully. I missed it; so did he. The sea-gods did not. Our first mistake. At the surface his breathing was natural. As we descended, pressures increased & breathing becomes more laboured.
We'd been under water for 15 minutes traversing the depths from sighting to sighting and from site to site. My son followed behind, as is his want, usually to keep an eye on the old man. Unbeknownst to me, whilst riding on a cloud of neutral buoyancy and finning lazily over the coral like Melville's Moby-Dick on a sabbatical, my son had run out of air. His tank had air but under pressure his breathing had become laboured to the point where he ran the risk of oxygen-deprivation. Fortunately he had the presence of mind, just before he blacked-out, to make his way over to me, 15 meters away, on an imagined breath of air. It's a physical feat I couldn't replicate under flogging - very few would or could.
The shoulder-tap that followed I'll never forget. Seeing your son in distress, within arm's length, with nowhere to go other than nowhere, as the laws of physics dictate at depth, tends to clear the diary, even in paradise. A precipitous, potentially watery grave demands respect. We shared air from my octo and descended to the sea-floor to assess the problem. Equipment failure is rare. We'd done the checks. Human-error is more common. By process of elimination we found the fault and opened his cylinder valve to its stops. Looking more settled he switched back to his own air and we continued the dive. Mistake number 2. What followed was distressing although we laugh about it now - the lessons learnt. What neither of us appreciated then were the more long-term effects on his well-being from exertion under stress. He'd signaled okay & I'd taken him at his word. Stupid is as stupid does... Me, not him.
Appearing to be fully recovered he was, however, still disorientated & functioning on auto. Set free his immediate reaction was to scud-off across the reef like a mini-school of paranoid fish. I'm a strong swimmer but carry more handicap than I used to in the days when ice cream wasn't a daily staple. He had youth & rapture in his camp. No contest! I caught the little b#stard sharp-like & in less time than it took to administer oxygen once we'd ascended safely. His recovery was slow but a complete success. Desperation over youthful rapture - every time. It could have ended badly. We were lucky. Even so, it must have been bloody funny to watch.
Back on dirt the thud at my left foot was the auditory consequence of an envenomated Tree Rat involuntarily exiting a tree. The tree happened to be the same arbor under which I was standing at the time. On making contact with terra firma, which exerted an equal but opposite force on the unintended jumper, the rat went 'oomph' / I thought thud - semantics really & moot either way. The surprise was instant; the silent scream - a drip away from a wet puddle. At the time I thought the rodent had been at the Old Year's marula. Not so.
A flicker at eye-level, a hand-span, above and within tongue-rasp range of my left ear revealed a greenish serpent seemingly as interested in my dancing as it was in the rat's throes down below.
Fortunately for a Dendroaspis ie: highly venomous mamba - this Green is a teddy & a very rare find.
This particular individual was enchanting, if not hypnotic esp. at close quarters. Although never aggressive, this snake brooks no nonsense. It will defend itself, with intent & unyielding attention to detail.
For the Facebook snake-wranglers, social media cowboys & the uninitiated, death by Green Mamba is certain if its bite is left untreated. Ask the rat. Other than a very brief hop, skip & jump, after impact, and somewhere between death's kiss & the floor, down below, the venom had stolen its heart. It's that quick.
Encouraged [ie: instructed] by Alisha to remove the tree asp 'for the safety of & in the interests of our little children & unborn grandchildren' & given its proximity to our accommodation, I was obliged to handle the beast. I wasn't carrying my tongs but no matter - or so I was told by the gathered throng. Snakes don't bother me but that doesn't mean I'm complacent either. When the reaper whispers sweet nothings in your ear it pays to listen. Fortunately the snake came quietly & handled well. We walked hand on tail and cheek to jowl, on the green mile, to a land somewhere far, far away. Expecting to be carried home on a hand-borne litter of cheer - a hero, I returned, instead, to a silent, disapproving wife - 'why put yourself in harm's way...?' Eh? Be still my beating heart.
Birding in Sodwana Bay doesn't live up to the generosity of its habitat. It's a consequence of many things; the most destructive of which are the monkeys who rampage, unhindered, through the trees consuming eggs & chicks. The surviving birds are old-timers from a less frenetic past. What will happen in the vacuum, when the grey-beards fly onwards, is a question for the keepers of the watch. Even so, we jotted down 73 sp. in a short stay including a beach-loving Sooty Falcon, an Ayres's Hawk-Eagle, Southern Banded Snake Eagle and most of the resident specials sans the Woodward's Batis; conspicuously quiet. At nearby Mbazwana two more Sooty Falcons, Lemon-breasted Canary and Swamp Nightjar.
South Africa's Sodwana Bay is, arguably, the world's premier dive site. For the guest, not glued to the beach, it's the gateway to a surf & turf excursion esp. if travelers take advantage of the world-class game reserves close-by. Although we haven't seen a White Shark in the area, others have. Include the cetaceans, whale sharks & mantas, and it's possible to see Africa's terrestrial and aquatic megafauna in a day's excursion. We return here, most years, for the shallow-water diving and some offshore game-fishing. We will, however, remember the trip for its surprises rather than the reef's nudis or even the singing reels.
Most of us are anatomically ill-equipped to breathe under-da-sea; in our naked splendour that is... Notwithstanding the sunburn-risk associated with that image, with the correct apparatus, specific training and some application, the wonders of the ocean's depths reveal themselves, even if only in small hourly increments.
The marine ecosystem is a complex, interconnected web of life. It's stunningly beautiful & will kill-ya in the blink of an eye; given half the chance. We're trespassers in this forbidden paradise even if we justify the intrusion as our right of exploration. In that context then visibility on this particular dive was excellent; the current at the sea-floor, benign. Both those variables make for an intriguing dive.
Our planned dive descended to a depth which required a safety stop ie: we were diving too deep to surface without stopping at a shallower depth to avoid DCS [decompression] as we ascended / depressurised. Simultaneously, our dive also skirted the depth where occasionally men-bark-at-fish ie: suffer from gas narcosis. Narcosis is uncommon & described as a state of drunkenness. ie: the impairment of mental function caused by the inhalation of certain gases under elevated pressures. Crowing like a rooster, whilst strutting your stuff on stage, under hypnosis, is one thing. An equally involuntary performance underwater is more permanent particularly if the performer removes their breathing apparatus, backstage. To ameliorate the risks & improve safety most divers dive in twos. My eldest son would accompany me on the dive.A pre-dive safety check includes the confirmation of free-flowing air from the gas cylinder to the regulator second stage [ie: mouthpiece]. My son failed to open his gas cylinder fully. I missed it; so did he. The sea-gods did not. Our first mistake. At the surface his breathing was natural. As we descended, pressures increased & breathing becomes more laboured.
We'd been under water for 15 minutes traversing the depths from sighting to sighting and from site to site. My son followed behind, as is his want, usually to keep an eye on the old man. Unbeknownst to me, whilst riding on a cloud of neutral buoyancy and finning lazily over the coral like Melville's Moby-Dick on a sabbatical, my son had run out of air. His tank had air but under pressure his breathing had become laboured to the point where he ran the risk of oxygen-deprivation. Fortunately he had the presence of mind, just before he blacked-out, to make his way over to me, 15 meters away, on an imagined breath of air. It's a physical feat I couldn't replicate under flogging - very few would or could.The shoulder-tap that followed I'll never forget. Seeing your son in distress, within arm's length, with nowhere to go other than nowhere, as the laws of physics dictate at depth, tends to clear the diary, even in paradise. A precipitous, potentially watery grave demands respect. We shared air from my octo and descended to the sea-floor to assess the problem. Equipment failure is rare. We'd done the checks. Human-error is more common. By process of elimination we found the fault and opened his cylinder valve to its stops. Looking more settled he switched back to his own air and we continued the dive. Mistake number 2. What followed was distressing although we laugh about it now - the lessons learnt. What neither of us appreciated then were the more long-term effects on his well-being from exertion under stress. He'd signaled okay & I'd taken him at his word. Stupid is as stupid does... Me, not him.
Appearing to be fully recovered he was, however, still disorientated & functioning on auto. Set free his immediate reaction was to scud-off across the reef like a mini-school of paranoid fish. I'm a strong swimmer but carry more handicap than I used to in the days when ice cream wasn't a daily staple. He had youth & rapture in his camp. No contest! I caught the little b#stard sharp-like & in less time than it took to administer oxygen once we'd ascended safely. His recovery was slow but a complete success. Desperation over youthful rapture - every time. It could have ended badly. We were lucky. Even so, it must have been bloody funny to watch.
A flicker at eye-level, a hand-span, above and within tongue-rasp range of my left ear revealed a greenish serpent seemingly as interested in my dancing as it was in the rat's throes down below.
Fortunately for a Dendroaspis ie: highly venomous mamba - this Green is a teddy & a very rare find.This particular individual was enchanting, if not hypnotic esp. at close quarters. Although never aggressive, this snake brooks no nonsense. It will defend itself, with intent & unyielding attention to detail.
For the Facebook snake-wranglers, social media cowboys & the uninitiated, death by Green Mamba is certain if its bite is left untreated. Ask the rat. Other than a very brief hop, skip & jump, after impact, and somewhere between death's kiss & the floor, down below, the venom had stolen its heart. It's that quick.
Encouraged [ie: instructed] by Alisha to remove the tree asp 'for the safety of & in the interests of our little children & unborn grandchildren' & given its proximity to our accommodation, I was obliged to handle the beast. I wasn't carrying my tongs but no matter - or so I was told by the gathered throng. Snakes don't bother me but that doesn't mean I'm complacent either. When the reaper whispers sweet nothings in your ear it pays to listen. Fortunately the snake came quietly & handled well. We walked hand on tail and cheek to jowl, on the green mile, to a land somewhere far, far away. Expecting to be carried home on a hand-borne litter of cheer - a hero, I returned, instead, to a silent, disapproving wife - 'why put yourself in harm's way...?' Eh? Be still my beating heart.
Birding in Sodwana Bay doesn't live up to the generosity of its habitat. It's a consequence of many things; the most destructive of which are the monkeys who rampage, unhindered, through the trees consuming eggs & chicks. The surviving birds are old-timers from a less frenetic past. What will happen in the vacuum, when the grey-beards fly onwards, is a question for the keepers of the watch. Even so, we jotted down 73 sp. in a short stay including a beach-loving Sooty Falcon, an Ayres's Hawk-Eagle, Southern Banded Snake Eagle and most of the resident specials sans the Woodward's Batis; conspicuously quiet. At nearby Mbazwana two more Sooty Falcons, Lemon-breasted Canary and Swamp Nightjar.
2017 still reads in prologue but if its early lessons and sightings, both rare & remarkable, are anything to judge these things by, we're in for an interesting year. Upwards & onwards. Happy happies.
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