It’s no wonder our forefathers named it the ‘Transkei’… loosely translated as ‘that place over that river’. It was a place so formidable and difficult to transverse yet alluring beautiful. Not much has changed since those days. Sure, now there’s a spiderweb of mud roads criss-crossing the landscape, which makes getting from A to B at least possible. The mystery of the Transkei still grips you. It’s almost surreal.

Deep green valleys carve their way through to cliffs that plummet into the sea, as if the hand of God came and tore away the shoreline. The Transkei is like something out of a Tolkien novel, a ‘Middle Earth’ of sorts complete with rolling mists that cloak its secrets. Even the trees grow strangely, twisted and battered by the wild winds and elements.

The Transkei ocean, not unlike the land, also has its own thing going on. It’s not at all like the Cape or Natal. The Transkei cliffs seem to give the sea an odd ‘bump’ even on calm days. The colour of the water is different, a ‘clean green’ gloom with an airy feeling to it that only adds to the adventure and craziness of this phenomenal place.

Sodwana is one of South Africa’s premium spearfishing destinations. As an experience, it’s about as close to diving Mozambique as you can find, but with a fraction of the hassle and cost. As you can imagine, we get quite a few requests for information on where and how to spearfish up at Sodwana. And it’s not just absolute beginners who are asking – seasoned spearo’s doing their home work, trying to hone their dive strategies for the area, are also eager for knowledge.

The reality is, Sodwana is a maze of reefs that stretch over a dive area of more than 60km and even trying to make sense of the smallest of reefs can lead to frustration. Due to the vast expanse of reefs and diveable areas, changing conditions (like currents, tides and different seasons) are variables that make a spot a boiling mass of fish one day and an absolute desert the next.

I have been diving Sodwana for almost 20 years and it is only in the past few years that I have started to dive the area effectively. I’ve picked the brains of various people on the where and how to dive the area, and have gleaned a lot of knowledge in this way.