Sodwana Bay

Sodwana Bay is on the KwaZulu-Natal coast north of St Lucia, inside the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and the Maputaland Marine Protected Area. Its reefs are the southernmost coral reefs in Africa — the warm Agulhas Current running down the coast carries tropical larvae far enough south to keep them alive at a latitude where coral has no business growing.

The reef complex runs about 50 km offshore and parallel to the beach, and the sites are named for how far up the coast they are from the launch: Quarter Mile, Two-Mile, Five-Mile, Seven-Mile, Nine-Mile. Two-Mile Reef is the largest and the one almost everybody dives.

There is no harbour. Boats are rigid inflatables driven straight off the sand and through the surf line, which is the part of the day people remember.

In November 2000 a resident population of coelacanths was found in the submarine canyons off Sodwana, at the edge of the continental shelf — the first ever seen alive in South African waters, and far from the Comoros where they were thought to live. They are at 100 m plus and need trimix.