While I am fortunate to have travelled to many countries in the world I was unprepared for my surprise at having the opportunity to live and work in another country for an extended period of time. I found myself on a permanent high for the first six weeks of my stay, fascinated by the Maldivian people and their culture.

P is for Paradise – Paradisical (there is such a word now) Pomene. The feeling of paradise washes over me under the clear blue sky, as I glide past the flock of pink flamingos with their upside down heads gracing one of the sandbars in the gin clear water of the Pomene estuary.

The 22nd of January 1998 is a day that is indelibly fixed in my mind. This was the day that I was to discover the amazing world under the sea. We had left Johannesburg at midnight, driven through the night in convoy, covering some 600 kilometres to arrive at the Mozambique border at 8.00 a.m. when the border opened for business.

The North West Province of South Africa is a landlocked region about 800 kilometres from the nearest sea that, on the face of it, would appear to offer nothing of interest to a visiting diver. The landscape of burnt brown is fried to a crisp by the African sun and water is in short supply.

Freediving is catching on worldwide. It’s an exciting and exhilarating sport that requires both physical and mental preparedness and toughness. It is also a very liberating sport for divers who have converted from scuba to freediving or who freedive occasionally. The Blue Hole in Dahab is a favourite for freedivers who go there to train, learn and improve their skills and abilities. Morten Villadsen’s article on freediving the Blue Hole is informative and illuminating and well worth a leisurely read.

Rowan Duvel, a long-time friend of the editors of African Diver spent a year in the Maldives helping to improve the water and sanitation resources there. In between his work obligations he managed to find time to explore the diving the islands have to offer. In this article he relates his experiences of freediving with Mantas there and provides an interesting visual insight to island life.

Co-editor Paul Hunter loves diving Sodwana Bay, as his extensive photographic library shows. In this issue he provides us with a visual feast of images from his collection and advises on the best dive locations to be found when diving Sodwana. Sodwana is not only about diving and the area boasts some of the most interesting and beautiful non-diving locations in South Africa. Paul’s article details some of these locations for us.

The journey to Ponta Mamoli, once you cross the border, is deliciously exciting and otherworldly. Adventurous, anticipatory yet simple and beautiful it is a journey that feeds the soul. It is 4x4 country: characterised by vague sand roads that dip and climb through dunes, coastal forests and spectacular wetlands – a delight to the senses.

Diving on the KwaZulu-Natal coast during September, October and the first half of November has been very much a hit and miss affair. This time of year is generally a period of regular rainfall and windy conditions which create variable conditions that play havoc within the diving fraternity along the coast.

The “Deep South” as it is sometimes referred to must be one of the best kept secrets in the Red Sea. It’s unspoilt, secluded, and diverse with some of the best diving I have ever done. This is really a special place to visit and dive, one which I highly recommend.

Winter on the Kwa-Zulu Natal (KZN) south coast brings warm days, good visibility (due to the lack of rain during at this time of year), the annual sardine run and, last but not least, the annual migration of the raggies to the south coast reefs.