Freediving is catching on worldwide. It’s an exciting and exhilarating sport that requires both physical and mental preparedness and toughness. It is also a very liberating sport for divers who have converted from scuba to freediving or who freedive occasionally. The Blue Hole in Dahab is a favourite for freedivers who go there to train, learn and improve their skills and abilities. Morten Villadsen’s article on freediving the Blue Hole is informative and illuminating and well worth a leisurely read.

Rowan Duvel, a long-time friend of the editors of African Diver spent a year in the Maldives helping to improve the water and sanitation resources there. In between his work obligations he managed to find time to explore the diving the islands have to offer. In this article he relates his experiences of freediving with Mantas there and provides an interesting visual insight to island life.

In this issue, the Moving Sushi expedition writes of their experiences in Senegal. It’s worth remembering that Moving Sushi’s expedition purpose is to film and document the state of Africa’s fisheries and marine resources. While the team members get to dive in exotic locations their work is fascinating, shocking and sometimes encouraging. Senegal doesn’t fall in the encouraging category unfortunately and this article tells us why.

Christopher Bartlett writes extensively on diving related topics and his article on shark conservation provides an interesting twist on why we humans should be concerned about conserving these little-understood creatures. This is not just another conservation article as Christopher takes time to explain just how inter-connected all animal and plant life really is and just how important sharks are to maintaining balance. Life is, after all, all about balance.

Co-editor Paul Hunter loves diving Sodwana Bay, as his extensive photographic library shows. In this issue he provides us with a visual feast of images from his collection and advises on the best dive locations to be found when diving Sodwana. Sodwana is not only about diving and the area boasts some of the most interesting and beautiful non-diving locations in South Africa. Paul’s article details some of these locations for us.

Many of South Africa’s divers live in Johannesburg, at altitude, where there are several interesting and challenging inland dive sites. Taking account of the effects of altitude when diving is something most divers pay little attention to and DAN’s article reminds us of the issues.