Tribal styled sculpture in Cape Town

This is a piece of artwork in the "centre" of Cape Town, as you drive down Hertzog beulavard towards the Civic Centre and Nic Malan buildings from the N2. From when I was around 21 I had always wanted to see these close up but never took the time. When I left the UK on the 09/09/2001 to return to South Africa on the 10/09/2001 the first thing I did in Cape Town was, go to the pedestrian bridge on which this sculpture is located and walked around, attempting to appreciate Cape Town as a tourist 

Christmas 2000, no snow, but freezing

This must have been the coldest most painful ride I have ever had on a motorbike. I rode from South London, Croydon/Sutton to Kensal Rise/Willesden Green at 1.30 am. The difficulty of the ride, was the fact that I only had summer leather gloves, denim jeans, denim jacket and t-shirt on. By the time I arrived home at Clarendon court, riding in the 2 degrees Celsius air, my hands burned when I placed them in a basin of cold water.

The day we went "set jetting" - a little vanity...

Sal and I spent a week helping out as divemasters so we could get out to Koh Phi Phi Ley, pictured out back, to dive the bay "where The Island" was filmed. We also dived the lighter shaded island on the left. The two "rocks" to the left of Koh Phi Phi Ley are name Bida Nai and Bida Nok, meaning large rock and small rock.

Bida Nai was a brilliant dive. I would actually recommend any of the dives around the rocks and the dive from the bay of Phi Phi Ley out into the open sea and then back into the bay. The tranquil sea along with a enjoyable drift out front combine for a great intermediate dive.

Dive in the morning and surf in the afternoon...

Or surf in the morning and dive in the Afternoon. On a day like today you can see that the water would probably have close to 8 meters visibility out over the PMB (see below). This is probably the smallest break in this area as just 1km around the corner (to the left) you would find what Mike Stewart quoted as a brilliant reef break with waves around twice the size, around 6 foot.

Favourite training dive site

The Pietermaritzburg (PMB) is the first Wreck dive I did after completing my PADI Advanced Open water course.

This was the start of some great experiences in diving and especially wreck diving for me.
After my first dive on the PMB I was almost hooked on Wreck diving, it was so amazing to be seeing a ship from this perspective.

My experience of diving the PMB was probably magnified by the fact that in my youth and being from what was then a little village called Fish Hoek, my Father, Grandfather and two of my uncles were in the Navy and I had been to see this ship in the harbour, meaning I have adventured this ship both above and below the sea.