Trip to Ponto Do Ouro

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EmJay

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Messages
23
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11
Location
Johannesburg
# of dives
0 - 24
Hi All,

I am off to Ponto for a few days next week. We are staying with and diving through Planet Scuba. Our dive package includes breakfast and dinner.

This is my first time diving outside the borders of South Africa. Any tips on what I need to take along or anything I should be aware of?

Any comments / advise will be greatly appreciated!

P.S. I just bought a GoPro 3 Black so hopefully I will have some good footage to share with everyone when I get back!
 
I've never been, but hopefully someone else can help you out with a few tips. Enjoy! And please write a trip report when you come back.
 
Emjay...just curious as to how you are getting to Ponto? Had considered going there coming in from Sodwana and it proved pretty difficult to plan. If you are coming in via Maputo, can you give a brief description of how you are going? Want to keep in mind for a future trip. thanks!
 
Hey guys,

As promised, here is my report on our Ponta trip. A group of about 15 went on this trip. The small group I traveled with left Johannesburg on Thursday morning at around 4:30AM and got to the resort at around 3PM. We could have done this quicker, but we did mess around a bit on the road. We drove to Ponta in a Landrover Defender laden with cylinders, diving gear and all our luggage. So it was definitely an interesting drive. We took the route below.

Totalroute.jpg

Getting through the Kosi Bay border with a South African passport was a very simple process. Our Defender was so jam packed, they didn't inspect anything, so it's not very strict. You do need to present your vehicle papers at the border (insurance and proof of ownership) so be careful there. We had a young guy from France with us, and he didn't have any problems getting in with his French passport and a Mozambique Visa. If you want to drive through all the way to Ponta, you definitely need a 4x4. Once you hit the border, it's soft sand roads all the way through. Ponta is not far from the border though, just some very interesting sand roads. Make sure your vehicle is in good condition and that you have a tyre pressure gauge as you will have to deflate your tyres a bit. You definitely do not want to get stuck here. If you are a 4x4 enthusiast, you will love this drive; it was a ton of fun. Have your camera ready around the Jozini Dam area as there are some amazing views. I will post some videos/images once I edit all the footage.

ocdiver1, I can understand why you find it challenging to get to Ponta. It's definitely out of the way. You can arrange a transfer from the border to Ponta for a reasonable fee (R200 per person). Some of the people in our group used this service and they were happy. It's not luxurious by any means, but they got them there safely. I imagine there are transfers from Durban, Johannesburg and Sodwana. It's not far from Sodwana Bay at all. Alternatively, if you really want to go to Ponta, you can probably arrange to join a local LDS when they go through. You can PM me and I can share my LDS details with you. We will probably go through again next year. My LDS really went above and beyond for this trip. We had a pirate themed weekend and we did a lot of beach and other activities as a group. You don't need a vehicle to get around Ponta. You can literally walk everywhere.

We went for 4 days. I recommend staying for at least a week. We stayed at Planet Scuba (Welcome to Planet Scuba Your gateway to paradise). The resort was lovely. It is very clean, the service was friendly and the food was amazing all at a very reasonable price. There is nothing like doing a really early dive and then going back to the resort for a full English breakfast.

We dived through Simply Scuba (Simply Scuba & Simply Bookings Dive & Travel). I found them to be decent. The boat was in good working condition and the DMs knew the reefs well. They load all your gear on the boat for you, offload it and wash it down after the dive. I am slightly weary of them handling my gear though. I found the inflator hose from my regulator still attached to my BCD after washing my gear.

When the conditions were ok, the diving was amazing. I did 4 out of the 5 planned dives. I decided to skip the last dive as I was quite congested on Sunday. I think my 4th dive was probably one of my top dives. I don't have many dives, but it will definitely be remembered for a long time. The first dive was very interesting. All dives are done off a rib as you can expect for this piece of coastline. All entries were negative. The current was very strong on the first dive. We had two divers who battled to get down and got out of breath on the surface so they had to call their dive. Our dive leader was pretty annoyed about this as we could have been briefed slightly better. The first dive was definitely a drift dive. I recommend carrying some sort of surface signalling device as a backup. Visibility was very poor throughout the weekend. We had between 5 and 12 meters throughout the weekend. Water temp was between 20c (68f) and 22c (71f). I dove in a 5mm wetsuit. I strongly recommend a hood and neoprene vest for additional warmth for the winter months as some dives I got pretty cold around the 30 to 40 minute mark.

Here is a description of the various reefs: Mozambique, Ponta Do Ouro. We dived Steve's Ledge, Creche and Doodles. Doodles is my favorite reef there so far. On one dive, we saw thousands of schooling fish. I suspect it's because of the poor visibility. I literally swam in these schools for ages. There were so many fish, it was difficult keeping sight of my buddy. We also saw plenty other creatures. Saw a 1.8m turtle, a huge sting ray (it could have easily wrapped itself around me), paper fish, saw my first frog fish, lion and scorpion fish, pipe fish, moray eels, octopus and lots of other small fish I cannot name yet. On the last dive, we had a pair of potato bass follow us for the entire dive. The one potato bass was about 1.4m, super friendly and inquisitive. Was a lot of fun swimming around with this guy. He would literally come in right in front of us to see what we were taking images of.

If you do plan a trip, go to a lodge that offers catering. I would not self cater as there are no real supermarkets there. All in all, it was a pretty good trip. Ponta is awesome. Some decent night life as there are a few beach bars. It's very relaxing and the people are friendly.
 
Thanks for the info and trip report EmJay! Definitely going to get to Ponto next time I'm in Southern Africa.
 
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