Danel Wentzel

The air in Vilankulo usually hits you first. Thick with salt, woodsmoke, and the promise of something wild. It’s a far cry from the crisp mornings in the Cape's kelp forests, but it has that same electric energy. We’ll ditch the tarmac for a 4x4, bumping along the beach until the land simply runs out and the dhows take over. This is where the story starts, not in a hotel lobby, but with sand between your toes and a camera bag balanced on your lap, heading toward an island that feels like it...

When you think about scuba diving, usually the first image that comes to mind is diving in warm tropical waters, hovering over coral reefs. But have you considered there might be an even more colourful dive site out there, teaming with life? Along Cape Town's shores, there lives a world beneath the waves. From the surface, kelp forests just look like floating, slimy plants, but once you submerge underneath, you will see an alien landscape come to life. In these kelp forests live over 14 000...

This kelp forest is made of a species thought to be Ecklonia radiata, an abundant intertidal species of kelp found around the East coast of South Africa. Here in Mozambique, this population is sitting at around 35 m depth. I first fell in love with kelp when I moved to Cape Town from a small land-locked farm town in order to pursue my lifelong dreams of becoming a marine biologist. It’s here beneath these shifting shades and slimy kelp blades where my love for marine life, education and...