Aug 11 2020
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Things are looking up!

By Sodwana Bay

Hey Guys Great news – we have reached 1500 views on our Sodwana Bay youtube channel! It might seem like nothing, but for us it means growth! Growth means that we are getting somewhere – even if it is slowly. Slow and steady wins the race… Sodwana Bay Channel > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXH0Nm5epc8gZj9WfI8qGIg Thanks to all our supporter, for those who have subscribed, watched our videos and follow our journey… With out you this would never have been possible… For all Sodwana Bay and travel lovers please share our videos so we can make Sodwana Bay a popular tourist attraction once again! Koa Sinag – Our Newest Youtube Channel! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXpyEjBiSt1Z9bXSWc4XImA/    

Aug 07 2020
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KoaSinag

By Sodwana Bay

KoaSinag We are – Who we are! We took the biggest leap of FAITH of our lives – packed our family up and started the BEST adventure of our lives… NO REGRETS! Please join our Adventurous Journey by subscribing to our Youtube channel. Also remember to click the bell icon for future notifications… Koa Sinag is derived from two different languages – Koa (Hawaiian) Meaning Brave and Sinag (Philippines) Meaning Ray of Light. Well the Brave part we still tryna develop and not exactly sure how to be a ray of light… Join our journey as we learn to be both!   [embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/embed?listType=playlist&list=UUXpyEjBiSt1Z9bXSWc4XImA&layout=gallery[/embedyt]

Apr 02 2020
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Blind as a “SNAKE”??? Schlegel’s beaked blind snake @ Sodwana Bay ~ South Africa

By Sodwana Bay

Afrotyphlops schlegelii, commonly known as Schlegel’s beaked blind snake or Schlegel’s giant blind snake, is a species of snake in the family Typhlopidae. The species is endemic to eastern and southern Africa, and bears the distinction of being the world’s largest typhlopid. It is harmless to humans and lives exclusively on a diet of termites. Source: WikiPedia We usually tell someone they are as blind as a bat, but why do we only use bats as illustrations to describe how blind we are? There are a lot of other creatures out there that are just as blind or even blinder than bats, but they never get credit for their way of navigating the world! Living close to a nature reserve without borders can bring excitement almost every day… We live next to the Isimangaliso wet lands park a world recognized heritage site, but occasionally there might be a few strays that stray outside the protection of the park, such as – the occasional hippo, monkeys, monitor lizards, mongoose and of course snakes wandering out of its borders. You wake up in the morning wondering what excitement the day will bring in your own yard… No need to go to a nature reserve to find some fun, exciting things, they decide to come to us… Although sometimes I wonder how the larger creatures such as monitor lizards and tortoises manage to get into our yard through a tight fence… We have encountered a few snake species around our yard and even in our house before, to name a few snake species – the brown house snake, an Eastern Green snake falling on our Tv and than later found on a nearby tree next to our house, a East African Shovel snout snake tryna hide away in our door post (We thought it might’ve been a Stiletto snake), these are just to name a few… Our latest snake find is the Schlegel’s beaked blind snake… It has a weird crown on its head, black and white spotted with a white belly and it is hard to tell it’s head from its tail, as we discovered this morning while it couldn’t stop wriggling… Apparently it is a really rare find as they usually stay under ground… I wonder what this one was doing above ground? It tried to burrow a hole to get away from us, but we know better than to just leave an unknown snake close to our house, especially not knowing of it’s venomous or not… So far we have been lucky enough only to find non-venomous snakes, but still stay cautious… Although all the snakes mentioned above are non-venomous they still have teeth and mouths big enough to bite if feeling threatened… Our family freak out every time we show them a new snake… Some find it fascinating and exciting, whilst others vow never to come visit while there are snakes around… It is really funny seeing different peoples reactions to snakes… A few fun facts about these tiny snakes: They only grow up to 60 – 70 cm or maximum of 95 cm… So maybe up to a school ruler and a half… That is really not big for a snake… These snakes live solely on termites and their larvae and are no threat to humans… Now I know why the snake was above ground… These Snakes often emerge above ground after heavy rains… I guess their houses might be flooded underneath the ground or they chasing after the termites that have now started making new nests? These snakes have no idea when to stop eating – well that is my opinion… Ever heard of an obese wild snake?! I have never heard of any wild animal living in the wild ever been obese till now… Schlegel’s beaked blind snakes are as blind in sight as they are in their appetite… These snakes often over eat themselves – who knew termites could be so fattening…. I get why there tails are so fat and not pointy like almost every other snake out there! These obese snakes are awesome snacks for predators such as birds of prey and other carnivorous snakes – more like cannibal snakes! I think these snakes are blind for a reason… They live most of their lives underground and have very little use for their sight… They have scales that cover their eyes, so they are not completely blind, but don’t see well at all either… Sort of like a mole… The Schlegel’s beaked blind snakes are the largest snake in their family… Makes you wonder how small can snakes be before been classified as worms? Our factual sources for this article came from: WikiPedia and Snake Bite institute 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 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.