South Africa 2004

Sodwana Bay - the "Tractor Beach"

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Sodwana Bay is probably the most popular tourist attraction in northern KZN. The beach itself is gorgeous, but right off of the beach is a coral reef, where during low-tide colorful reef fish get trappd in small rock pools. So you just strap on a mask and dip your head under water and the water is teeming with pretty, colorful tropical fish!

The other major attraction are the dive operators who launch their boats on the beach to take divers out to the main coral reefs, where they swim among sharks and 1,600 species of tropical fish. They use tractors to pull the boats in and out of the water, and Jacob was so fascinated by that, he called it the "tractor beach."

Some of the coolest fish we saw: a baby moray eel, a spotted ray, and at one point, I was snorkeling along the reef in the pictures below and was surrounded by a school of hundreds of foot-long baby yellowfin tuna!