Aliwal Shoal and the South Coast

A Fossilised Sand Dune Drowned By Rising Seas And Now Carrying Coral, Two Kilometres Off Umkomaas, Rated Among The Best Shark Dives On Earth Ragged Tooth Sharks Gather Here In Winter In Numbers Found Almost Nowhere Else With The Sardine Run Passing Up This Coast Between Roughly June And July. ADVANCED DIVING: Surge, Current And A Rubber Duck Launch Straight Through The Surf · Umkomaas, KwaZulu-Natal

Twenty thousand years ago this was a sand dune on a coastal plain. The sea rose, drowned it, and cemented it into rock, and two kilometres off Umkomaas there is now a reef that is not a coral reef in the tropical sense at all - it is a fossil dune with coral growing on it, cut by caves, gullies and a pinnacle, and it is consistently rated among the best shark dives anywhere on earth. In winter ragged-tooth sharks gather here in numbers found almost nowhere else, hanging in the gullies in a way that makes the whole trip worth it; tiger and blacktip sharks come to the baited dives; and somewhere around June and July the sardine run moves up this coast with everything that eats sardines behind it. Two honest warnings. The diving is advanced - surge, current, and a launch straight out through the surf in a rubber duck. And the sardine run fails in some years, which an operator taking your deposit in March has no way of telling you.

Two kilometres offshore from Umkomaas on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast, 50 km south of Durban, Umkomaas, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

DIVING IS BOAT-BASED AND OPERATOR-RUN out of Umkomaas, with launches generally in the morning when the sea allows, and THE SEA IS THE SCHEDULE - swell, wind and surf cancel dives at short notice and no operator can promise otherwise. The launch is a RUBBER DUCK STRAIGHT THROUGH THE BREAKERS, which is part of the experience and part of the reason this is not a beginner's site. OPERATORS WILL ASK FOR YOUR CERTIFICATION AND LOGGED DIVE COUNT and should refuse you if it is thin. Ragged-tooth season runs roughly through the winter months; THE SARDINE RUN IS ROUGHLY JUNE TO JULY AND FAILS IN SOME YEARS. Umkomaas is a small town with lodges, dive shops and places to eat; Durban is fifty kilometres north. MALARIA-FREE.

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