Mar 23 2020
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Honey Combs of the Sea – Honey Comb Moray Eel @ Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa

By Sodwana Bay

For those who follow our blogs you must’ve read the article about the cute small Snowflake eel.. They may be ankle biters, but no real harm will come from them, especially that they are so small and are super shy rather choosing to flea then attack! But what do you do when you encounter their much larger cousins that might be able to bite your ankle right off given the chance… Well our solution was to flee to the nearest, shallowest smallest rock we could find! Ok, let me reverse too the beginning! We were on our way back to shore after experiencing a super awesome neap tide… The water was only 0.3 m high in low tide and was the shallowest we have ever seen in Sodwana! It was already quite an eventful day, we found a puffer fish, a lionfish and a snowflake eel all in one day… That has to be a record of how many exotic creature we found in one day! We were almost back on dry land when Tom stopped us dead in our tracks, luckily he spotted the eel, we were literally heading straight for it and if Tom didn’t see it might even have stepped on… We switched the GoPro on to try film it – wasn’t aware about how it loves the camera spot light. It left it’s sunbathing spot to come show off to the camera, but obviously a wild animal swimming straight to you especially with razor sharp teeth usually means RUN!!!! Like I mentioned before, we chose the smallest, shallowest, nearest rock we could find… I think the people that saw us standing on this tiny rock must’ve thought we were crazy! Our eel was not very happy, if it really wanted to, it could’ve grabbed one of our legs, but instead it swam as close as possible to rock and swam past us… We later watched the video of this encounter, unfortunately nothing worth showing, but we figured out the poor eel was just so excited to have it’s picture taken and was really just tryna pose for the camera… I think this poor Eel was very disappointed in us for running away from it and got mad tryna get one more shot of it’s self in the camera… We have heard of a really friendly moray Eel that loves the attention of cameras, obviously we always thought the eel lived in the open deep water seas, where all the Scuba divers go to swim… But now we know it likes to visit the snorkelers as well… Kinda disappointed now because we could’ve had really awesome footage of a beautiful Honey Comb Moray Eel… The worst part about it all was that while doing some homework about these creatures to my article – I found out all though they might be dangerous, they don’t really care to hunt during the day and will much rather sleep or sunbathe than attack anything… You really have to annoy the poor creature for it to even think about fighting you off in the day time – although night time is an entire different story, you don’t wanna be mistaken for food… Next time I encounter a Honeycomb Moray Eel, I will definitely be cautious, but not so afraid to give it, it’s 15 seconds of fame… A few Fun Facts about these beautiful creatures: These Honeycomb Eels has numerous names due to it’s numerous different spotted patterns… Some have more leopard spots that are quite large almost resembling patches, whilst others like the one we encountered is super spotty like a cheetah. Their main color an vary between light yellow and white, like we have experienced it all depends on how the light hit the Eel and how deep it is! The spots on the Eel can vary from the Eel its self or because of its environment… Such as if the Eel lives in clear water close to reefs, the spots could be much larger as apposed to those who live deeper in the water without much reefs around… The ones we discovered is actually the opposite way round, but maybe that’s just Sodwana… Like most Eels the Honeycomb Eel loves warm water and will even settle for the red sea… These Eels can be found anywhere in the indo-west pacific ocean… They like to stay close to the reefs during the day and are ready to hunt at night! Next time you wanna plan a vacation make sure to book a beach trip to Sodwana – These Eels are real characters… Honeycomb Eels love tight spaces… Like any other Eel Honeycombs love hiding away in tight fitting holes, that’s if they can find a spot that is uninhabited by another creature… If there are no small holes which the Eel can sleep in they will also reside to lying under coral/rock ledges, since they are nocturnal, they are rarely seen active during the day, if seen at all! We were extremely lucky to have found this Honeycomb Eel Sunbathing during the day out in the open! Honeycomb Eels are super efficient for their environment, they help keep invasive species at bay, such as the Lion Fish. Most already know that lion fish can be super invasive and destroy entire coral reefs if not kept in check by their natural predators… I am so glad we have Moray eels in our reefs at Sodwana Bay, we have spotted a few Lion Fish in the rock pools already, good thing they will never the opportunity to take over our reefs… There are to other popular names for the Eels: the laced Moray or Leopard moray, makes sense on their color variations… Honestly I always imagined every Eel been really ugly… Since the most popular Eel is the electric Moray Eel and that one is super ugly!!! But meeting a couple Snowflake eels and now the Moray Eel I found that the myth of all eels been ugly is just…

Mar 18 2020
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The super noisy bunch – Cicadas @ Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa

By Sodwana Bay

Description of the Cicada: Cicadas are large insects made conspicuous by the courtship calls of the males. They are characterised by having three joints in their tarsi, and having small antennae with conical bases and three to six segments, including a seta at the tip. The Auchenorrhyncha differ from other hemipterans by having a rostrum that arises from the posteroventral part of the head, complex sound-producing membranes, and a mechanism for linking the wings that involves a down-rolled edging on the rear of the fore wing and an upwardly protruding flap on the hindwing. Cicadas are feeble jumpers, and nymphs lack the ability to jump altogether. Another defining characteristic is the adaptations of the fore limbs of nymphs for underground life. The relict family Tettigarctidae differs from the Cicadidae in having the prothorax extending as far as the scutellum, and by lacking the tympanal apparatus. Anyone who has ever stayed near a cicada hoard will know the eerie screams of Cicadas. Although they only awake every 17 years, their songs can quite literally be deafening… In the city I guess Cicadas try steer far away from, with people chopping down their habitat all the time and they just can’t compete with the constant buzzing of the city life… I would also much rather come sing my song in an environment that appreciates it… These creatures are really ugly matching their real annoying song… a couple of Cicadas can still be bearable, their song can be matched to some grasshoppers… But when those couple Cicadas become a couple hundred or even thousand Cicada’s it can really become a noisy band… Kinda like allowing your teenager to start a band in your garage with no noise limits! All though they are completely harmless – besides almost destroying your hearing – I think a lot of people are super tempted to kill these bugs the moment they see them… They are one of the ugliest bugs I have ever seen – apart from the Roman/Sun Spider – a frequent visitor her in Sodwana Bay -That is saying a lot coming from me, since I really try see the beauty in every creature. Living near Sibaya Lake close to Sodwana Bay we get a lot of Cicadas frequently flying into our house – Wouldn’t be surprised if some have even made a permanent residency inside… The worst part about these ugly “buggers” is when you getting ready to wash dishes and just as you about to start a cicada decides to in dive in your water or you grab the water jug to fill the dogs water bowl and one of these critters has been taking a swim in the water and pretends to be dead until you remove it from the bowl and it starts break dancing – This literally happened to me this morning – was not a pleasant early morning surprise… Cicada hiding in a drum… Anybody know which Cicada this might be? A few fun Facts about these creepy – Deafening Creatures – The Cicada: Each Cicada Species has a Variance of when they emerge… Some Cicadas will emerge once a year for a short while, whilst others will disappear for up to 17 years… This is a relief on your ears, that they don’t permanently have to hear the onslaught of Cicada singing… Where do Cicadas go after their cycle is done? Well you would think they would die off after they finished playing their song, but in actual fact they just regroup underground mating and keeping their populations strong and safe from predators… Our planet hosts some what – 1300 species of Cicada species as far as we know and South Africa has 150 Cicada Species of which have been discovered so far… Ok so I have done a little more homework on Cicadas, not all of them are as ugly as the ones we see around Sibaya… But honestly if I was a bug scientist, Cicadas would not be my first choice to study… Cicadas have their benefits to the environment… They help you prune your trees, they keep your tree roots in check and when they finally die they help fertilize your plants and rejuvenate the nitrogen in your soil. Best fertilizer ever! Just be careful if one of these critters lands on you, it might be harmless just looking for a place to rest or it might mistake your arm for a tree branch and attempt to feed… I will be very sure to shake any cicada off me from now on, not that I haven’t done this is in the past anyway… It is claimed that they don’t bite, but I am not really willing to find out what attempted feeding on feels like… It’s strange to think these small flying bugs can make such a huge noise and what is even more bizarre it is only the males who make these noises, hoping to woo the girls… I bet what we perceive as just horrible deafening noise is a beautiful melody to female cicada’s… But how can you choose between hundreds or even thousands of men tryna pursue you… That must be a really tough choice… Cicadas are a prize food in certain cultures and exotic nations, such as the Chinese, Central Africa even the posh ancient Greeks ate Cicadas… People who eat Cicadas claim the females are much more meatier then the males, some people will even eat their eggs and nymphs as well… No thank you, that is one thing I will not ever try is bugs, I think most girls will agree on this topic, bugs and guts is off the menu!!! Oddly enough there are a lot of myths and legends about these strange creatures… I really don’t wanna get into all the myths as there a lot of them… Obviously on top of the list would be Chinese myths along side the Japanese tails and Legend is not a true legend if the Greek gods were not…

Mar 18 2020
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Snorkeling at Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa – GoPro Hero

By Sodwana Bay

Great news Guys – We have a brand new video for you guys – We’ve reached our 11th video and still going strong… Special thanks to everybody who has joined in our journey and continues to support us every step of the way! This is an epic video of a taste of all the exciting things we did at Sodwana Bay in February… Unfortunately our song is just to short to show you all our super exciting moments… Enjoy this epic short video!!! Send us an email about any exotic or scary encounters you have had under the water or on land and your story might go viral! Please go checkout our  Patreon Page Below… We wanna start giving you guys who are committed to us exclusive content and be able to further our channel and provide better content to our Patrons… To do this we need funds and all the support we can get… Also check out our YouTube Channel when you done reading this… Every view is one step closer to our goal, we need 4000 hours of our subscribers views and 1000 Subscribers to be able to start making money and better content for you guys, YouTube is free please watch all our videos till the end… and subscribe – It’s Free – if you haven’t already and don’t forget to share the video when you done.

Mar 17 2020
0

The Steve Crab – Hermit Crab @ Sodwana Bay ~South Africa

By Sodwana Bay

Biological Description: Most species have long, spirally curved abdomens, which are soft, unlike the hard, calcified abdomens seen in related crustaceans. The vulnerable abdomen is protected from predators by a salvaged empty seashell carried by the hermit crab, into which its whole body can retract. Most frequently, hermit crabs use the shells of sea snails (although the shells of bivalves and scaphopods and even hollow pieces of wood and stone are used by some species). The tip of the hermit crab’s abdomen is adapted to clasp strongly onto the columella of the snail shell. Most hermit crabs are nocturnal. Source: WikiPedia I am sure everybody has heard the expression that some people are hermits… being reclusive. We were super excited to find a “Steve” crab in the rock pools… On Sunday, we were prowling Sodwana Bay beach for more video Footage for our youtube channel, unfortunately the tide was still a little bit high and we really didn’t want to wait till the low tide so we scoured what little rock pools could be seen. It’s not as exciting as being in the water it’s self, but you can find a few cute and different creatures that cling to the rocks and corals instead of swimming with the big fish. Hermit Crabs are definitely the kind to cling to rocks and coral and really hate being disturbed… Just like a Hermit person! I really wish we could have picked up one that wasn’t afraid to come out of it’s shell, but maybe one day one of these scaredy crabs might just allow us to see it’s true beauty! On the Left hand side is an illustration of what the hermit crab looks like without a shell   – Source: Mother Nature Network and on the left is a smaller crab taken by our GoPro. Both are hermit crabs, although they might be different kinds of Hermits they look similar to each 0ther, I am no expert in this matter… A few fun Facts about the “Steve” Crab: Anyone who has ever heard of a hermit crab most probably know this already… Unlike most crabs who have their own shells that shed and grow with them – the Hermit crab is designed to constantly scavenge for old shells as it gets older… Now we know who keeps on stealing the really cool and intact shells… This is something I really didn’t think existed – You get land hermit crabs and you get marine crabs… I know crabs stay close to water, but I always thought they were more like seals stay close to water to keep their skin moist and of course their main source of food is in the sea… But this is not the case both terrestrial and marine Hermit Crabs have gills and constantly need to keep their gills wet at all times – the only difference is terrestrial crabs have adapted to prolonged times out of water, whilst marine crabs can only last a few minutes out of water – Some hermit crab species are also kept as pets, but I would do my homework before getting one as a pet…. It’s a tough world for a crab – Hermit crabs have quite a tough life when it comes to choosing a home – Because they are constantly growing they constantly looking for a new house – much like a teenager, always looking for the next best thing – Some Hermit crabs will fight till the death to get that perfect home, whilst others will do the more civil thing and create chains waiting to get the right sized shell… A crab that is desperate for a new shell will often go pick on another crab – they will tap the other crabs shell until it comes out, once the crab is out the shell they will fight until one of them accepts defeat – this is kinda sad, they can loose limbs or even die from these encounters… At the end of the battle – the victorious crab gets to take over or keep the shell that was fought over… Now that I think about it – it’s kinda like having two neighbors who hate each other and finally battle it out for the prettiest girl on the block… The chain effect – Now this is a pleasant way to get what you want without the violence… One crab walks up to a shiny pretty shell he/she really wants, from a distance it looks to be the perfect size, unfortunately when it gets there – the shell is to big for it and will not do for it’s size… So it sits and waits… Hermit crabs will sit and guard that shell for up to eight hours if it has to – Mr Hermit decides he has nothing better to do so he sits close to the shell watching it… The next crab comes along seeing the same shell, but the shell is to big for this crab as well so it goes to wait in line holding Mr Crabs claw, this chain will stay unbroken for 8 hours, up to 20 crabs can for a single chain – eventually the crab they have all been waiting for – She is just the right size for the shell, without hesitation Mrs crab takes off her old shell and tries on the new shiny one – first inline is Mr crab – He takes off his old shell and puts Mrs crabs shell on and so the whole chain starts to exchange their shells each moving u to a bigger shell… This just proves that if Hermit crabs are not desperate for shells, they can work together in harmony to achieve all their goals together… Since most snails have a spiral shell (Hermits preferred shells)… Hermit crabs have adapted their soft bodies to be able to Spiral into the shell, clutching their tails around the inside of the shell… Although Hermit Crabs are very confident at fighting each other they are more like the hyenas and vultures of the sea… They scavenge the…

Mar 11 2020
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Vlogging 101 – What NOT to do! @ Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa – The 10th Video

By Sodwana Bay

This is really our funniest video we have ever made… Ok, that is really not saying much since we only have 10 videos so far… We are really trying hard to speak to the camera… So far it’s not going so great, it really takes a certain type of crazy to talk to a dead thing and pretend it’s alive… A part from that we are both super shy people – so even imagining we talking to someone is proving to be difficult… Tom is a little more confident than what I am as you can see he mostly speaks to the camera while I am forced to sit in the background – Would much rather be at the back of the camera than in the shot… We are trying and have our funny qwerks. This is just a small part of all the bloopers that we have recorded so far, unfortunately haven’t got any good talking footage yet, but we practicing every day… Experienced You Tubers make it look so easy talking to a camera… It really isn’t at least not to beginners! Enjoy the video – Hope it brightens up your day!!! Send us an email about any exotic or scary encounters you have had under the water or on land and your story might go viral! Please go checkout our  Patreon Page Below… We wanna start giving you guys who are committed to us exclusive content and be able to further our channel and provide better content to our Patrons… To do this we need funds and all the support we can get… Also check out our YouTube Channel when you done reading this… Every view is one step closer to our goal, we need 4000 hours of our subscribers views and 1000 Subscribers to be able to start making money and better content for you guys, YouTube is free please watch all our videos till the end… and subscribe – It’s Free – if you haven’t already and don’t forget to share the video when you done.

Mar 11 2020
0

Snorkeling at Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa – GoPro Hero – Our 11th Video

By Sodwana Bay

Whoohoo another amazing video added to our Youtube channel > GO SODWANA BAY!… This is a cool mashup of Sodwana Bay February 2020. This is only a really small part of all the exciting things we did this month… Unfortunately our song was to short and still busy tryna figure out the best way to mash songs together! Enjoy the Video Below… Hope you are as inspired as I am!!! Come visit Sodwana Bay! Watching this video and listening to this song really takes me back to my childhood… I guess at least 50% or more of us have a really fearful up bringing… We are literally taught to BE scared of the world… We are told never to go out at night alone, that we shouldn’t speak to strangers, we should never walk in the woods/forest/bushes, never approach a strange animal, don’t swim in lakes and ponds etc – etc. While most of these things are merited, I disagree with most of what my parents taught me in any case, I never did drugs, smoked or drank alcohol as a child, as an adult I keep drinking too a minimum… I am super grateful for the warnings against those dangers, but my parents also tried to teach me to be fearful of all the good things in the world, stepping out of bounds such as walking in bushes, just breaking away from society to be alone… As a child there use to be a type of forest behind most the neighborhoods we lived in. Trust me if there was something to find I found it… I loved it, it gave me incentive to walk my dogs each day and just find a quiet place far away from people… The thing I hated most was that my parents never approved so it was me and my best friend (my dog) little secret. I can relate so well to this song… I don’t claim to be brave, or recklessly stupid, I am well informed of the dangers in my environment. But just as this song may suggest, I am facing every fear head on. If Sodwana Bay has taught me anything it would be – Don’t be afraid of everything – Knowledge is not always power – If you respect nature it respects you – Just because something has the power to hurt you or kill you doesn’t mean that is it’s main goal – Don’t run from your fears rather take them head-on – Most times they more scared of you than you are of them it just depends on who folds first… Like I said before this song has great meaning to me… Don’t be afraid to break free from the curse of fear… Being brave always brings change – So break free of your fears and start LIVING!!!! Send us an email about any exotic or scary encounters you have had under the water or on land and your story might go viral! Please go checkout our  Patreon Page Below… We wanna start giving you guys who are committed to us exclusive content and be able to further our channel and provide better content to our Patrons… To do this we need funds and all the support we can get… Also check out our YouTube Channel when you done reading this… Every view is one step closer to our goal, we need 4000 hours of our subscribers views and 1000 Subscribers to be able to start making money and better content for you guys, YouTube is free please watch all our videos till the end… and subscribe – It’s Free – if you haven’t already and don’t forget to share the video when you done.