The Cape Town Dive Festival was held on the weekend of 8 and 9 September, at the Cape Boat and Ski Boat Club at Miller’s Point. My role was mostly to take bookings, which in most cases was a pleasant experience. By the time the festival rolled around I felt as though I had a whole bunch of new diving acquaintances, and it was a pleasure to meet them at registration where they collected a t shirt and lanyard with a lucky draw number on it.
The format of the festival was similar to the Port Elizabeth dive festival. Eight dive boats, two hundred and something divers, 45 boat launches and four shore dives to Shark Alley in total over the two days… The festival sponsors donated a range of fabulous prizes, and with a variety of competitions and lucky draws everyone stood a chance to win something. The participating dive operators, clubs and sponsors all had gazebos on the lawn around the clubhouse, and a festive atmosphere was ensured by Matt and Monty, who handled the music and announcements throughout the day. OMSAC provided catering from the club kitchen, keeping us all well fed on boerewors rolls and other treats.
The weather on the Saturday was picture-perfect, and visibility was excellent (but, strangely, not at the deeper sites). After the boats returned from their third launch, a cannon race was held just off the slipway, which provided much entertainment. The race, arranged by False Bay Underwater Club, required teams of five participants (two on scuba) to lift a concrete “cannon” using a lift bag, and swim it around a buoy and back to its starting position. An element of gruesomeness was added to proceedings by some snoek fishermen who washed their boat on the slipway, sending clouds of fish guts and blood into the water.
Throughout the day SURG ran a species identification competition, in which participants had to photograph as wide a range of marine animals as possible. Peter Southwood and Georgina Jones headed up a small but diligent team of fish-ID experts who combed through the photographs and reference books to judge the entries.
Here are some more of the photos I took on the day…
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