Hey Brian, dit gaan baie goed, dankie.
Yeah I love it here. I live in Durban which is around the corner from Umhlanga, actually Umhlanga is a suburb of Durban. Umkomaas is about a 45 min drive from me as well. The infamous Aliwal Shoal, the place to go diving with Ragged toothed sharks - lol and maybe catch a Zebrosoma Gemmatum when in season.
Crime is unfortuneatly something we live with, but it still amazes me how naieve the people living here still are. It's about awareness. Don't go walking down a shady part of town at midnight, flashing jewelery and valuables and wonder why you got mugged. Happens all over the world. My garage got broken into a while ago, my own fault - security system all over the house except the garage - Doh. That's changed and I've never had another problem. My brother left SA about 6 years ago. He now lives in Vancouver B.C. I visited about 3 years ago and was amazed to see that everything there is kept under lock and key as well, not any different to here I thought to myself - lol
Cool about the Argus and Two Oceans, I cycle myself but have never been a big runner, and of course Durban is home to the famous Comrades Marathon so there's always pressure to run it at least once in your lifetime, but seriously 90km !!!!! - Don't they know the wheel has been invented !!
Equipment and livestock keeps getting better. The hobby is still quite small here but most of the big European brands are available. Deltec, Tunze, Aquamedic, ATI etc. Also Reef Octopus has recently come in and is creating a stir. Livestock shipments come in via the LFS's from Bali, Indo, Singapore etc.
Or online shopping is easy enough for hardware. I got quite a bit of stuff from premium aquatics.
Cool man, next time you're out here you must give me a shout and I'll introduce you to a couple of the local reefers. Ant Calfo and Steve Pro are hopefully coming out here next year August. We're busy putting together a conference being organised by our loacl reef club and our local board - sareekeeping.com.
Good chatting to you
