iSimangaliso Wetland Park - The Kingdom of the Zulu

Situated within the World Heritage Site of the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, Sodwana Bay is renowned for its scuba diving, snorkelling and deep-sea fishing. 2-mile reef has 14 rocky reefs, covered with coral, and a wide variety of tropical fish. Anton's at the southern tip of this reef is truly spectacular

These reefs, estimated to be over 4000 years old, have plenty of caves, overhangs and pinnacles. They are covered with soft and hard corals, and can be dived all year round. Most species of shark have been spotted at Sodwana, and recently three coelacanths approximately 1.5m in length were photographed at a depth of 115m. The south flowing Agulhas current hits the continental shelf a few kilometres offshore, and this deep water is home to marlin and sailfish.

There are excellent snorkelling spots at Sodwana Bay, Kingfisher Bay, Adlams, Algae Reef and Mabibi, the latter all accessible by four-wheel drive vehicle along the beach. These reefs are abundant in goldies, lionfish, zebras, wrass, crayfish, feather stars, rays and moray eels.

Dive Sites

All the dive sites at Sodwana Bay are named by their distance from the Jesser Point Lighthouse. Because of the lack of fringing reefs the trip out to sea is a real adrenalin rush through rough rolling waves. And if you go out to 5 mile or beyond, you will usually have an opportunity to snorkel with the bottle-nosed dolphins that love to bow-ride in front of the boats. The humpback and southern right whales can be seen up and down the coast, and the occasional whale shark, spinner dolphin and humpback dolphin.

¼ mile - This very shallow, bland reef is the hunting ground for large rays and guitarfish. In the summer pregnant ragged-tooth sharks can be seen making their way up to Mozambique.

2 mile - This reef is about 2km in length with very interesting topography consisting of large rocky outcrops, arches, cliffs, pinnacles, overhangs, caves and swim-through. It is a shallow dive reaching a maximum of 14m covered with soft and hard corals and an abundance of fish life. Anton's is the most renowned dive site on this reef amongst 9 other very popular dive sites, and no wonder, as you will see snapper, zebra fish, moray eels, turtles, goatfish, fusiliers, clownfish, squirrel fish, wrasse, octopus, surgeons, emperor angle fish, triggerfish, damsels, blennies, crayfish, and plenty more.

Stringer reef - This is the nursery for the larger reef fish and home of the paper fish, relative of the scorpion fish. From the sponge covered walls blennies will peer out at you, while cleaner shrimp and cleaner wrasse are caring for a large variety of rock cod. There are magnificent anemones with attendant clown fish, and plenty of sea goldies.

Sponge reef - a deep reef where you will see the rare map puffer - one of the largest of the puffer fish whose beautiful patterned body is usually more than half a metre in length.

Five-mile reef - With a rugged topography of large rocks, deep gullies, pinnacles and grottos, this 24m deep reef is most well known for its bright red anemone. The pothole is the most popular spot on this reef, and is swimming with life. Scorpion fish, swallowtail triggerfish, huge crayfish, moray eels, paper fish and even the magnificent manta ray.

Seven-mile reef - Best known for its mushroom rocks, northern mall and amphitheatre, this reef is a popular choice with divers. Besides the prolific fish life, you will very often spot a black tip reef shark.

Nine mile - Divers come to see the magnificent coral tree (Tubastrea Micrantha) home to dark grey mature domino damsels, several species of crab and many smaller coral fish. There are many overhangs and caves home to large moray eels, lemon fish, moorish idols, nudibranchs, cuttlefish and snappers.

Turtle tours
There are seven species of marine turtles, but only the loggerhead and leatherback females nest along our shores during the night in the summer months.  Having found a suitable site well above the high water mark the female excavates a pit with her hind flippers in which she deposits between 100 and 120 soft white shelled eggs.  She then disguises the nest by throwing sand in all directions with her fore flippers and returns to the sea.  Leatherbacks can return up to 7 times and loggerheads up to 4 times in a season to deposit eggs. 

Between 55 and 65 days later the hatchlings are ready to emerge cutting their way free by means of a special egg tooth on the end of their beaks.  Once most of the eggs have hatched the hatchings start digging at the side of the nest until the sand collapses into the hole left by the empty shells making it possible for the hatchlings to climb to the surface.  The lighter sea horizon at night guides the hatchlings towards the water where they can escape the ghost crabs and other land predators.  They then go into a swimming frenzy to reach the Agulhas current which sweeps them down the east and southern coast of South Africa.