Divemaster

Newsletter: Wind water fire

Hi divers

Weekend diving

No dives planned

For some time now it has been difficult to write a NEWSletter as we have done so little diving. The harsh conditions have been relentless and decent weekday diving has also been dramatically curtailed. Whilst we wait for great diving conditions many, many people struggle to relax and feel safe while the raging fires have either cost them dearly or continue to pose a risk.

The number of hard working, dedicated people out there fighting these fires (including volunteer fire fighter slash Divemaster Gary, who many of you will know) makes you realise that being disappointed in another weekend of no diving is hardly worth a mention. I became anxious when the fire was still more than a kilometre away from our home, whilst other people were hosing their houses down in a hail of embers in an effort to save them.

So be grateful you have a home to hide from the wind and avoid the ocean this weekend. A 4 metre swell and 30 km/h winds are on the cards so it is once again a no diving weekend. If you’re doing the Cycle Tour on Sunday, good luck! We’re sorry you won’t be passing through our neck of the woods any more, but be safe and have fun anyway.

Fun stuff

There is an Aqualung dive festival happening in Gordon’s Bay in two weeks’ time on 21 March, with great prizes on offer for participating divers. There are still tickets available so contact Indigo Scuba or Underwater Explorers to book.

Those of you who expressed an interest in Mozambique in June-July can expect an email from Clare by the end of the weekend… Plans for last weekend’s email blitz were derailed by some smoke and flames! If you don’t know about the trip and want more info, let me know.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Oh buoy

Our cats (of which we have many, many) find our cars irresistibly appealing, and at the first opportunity will climb inside for an investigation. Tony once got out the gate and into the road with a car full of cylinders for filling, and a very wide-eyed Mini cat, who had climbed into the back of the vehicle while Tony was loading the tins.

Here’s Blue, still a little kitten, checking out (something next to) the buoy that the Divemaster (on our boat and shore dives) takes along with him on a reel and line, floating on the surface to mark the divers’ presence to boaters. She’s in the back of the divemobile. Everything gets a bit salty, and this seems to fascinate the cats – perhaps it’s one step away from bringing an actual fish home for them.

Newsletter: Running in

Hi divers

Weekend launches

Saturday: 9.00 and 11.30 to Atlantis and the Ark Rock wrecks, launching from FBYC

Sunday: 9.00 and 11.30 to Photographer’s Reef and Shark Alley, launching from FBYC

Dive report

We had pretty good conditions last weekend out of Hout Bay, where we launched on Sunday for a double tank dive for an Aquaventures IDC. On the BOS 400 the visibility was only about 6 metres, and about 8 metres at Duiker Island. There were reports of even better conditions inside Hout Bay.

After the divers left Clare and I took the boat down to the Slangkop lighthouse in Kommetjie for a picnic (on the water). The winds were light, with lots of sun and a gentle swell, and we spent some time putting running in hours on the boat.

The condition have been really good all week, and apart from a fog bank that hung around on Tuesday and Wednesday, the diving has been good. We dived Partridge Point and cowsharks on Tuesday to complete Open Water and Divemaster courses, and then spent some time just off Millers Point watching three huge short tail stingrays in the shallows. We were also fortunate to see humpback whales on the way back to Simon’s Town. (Yes, I did take a picture and yes they were humpbacks despite this not being the time of year for them!)

Dive conditions forecast

The forecast for the weekend is for very little swell, very little wind and lots of sunshine (29-30 degrees on both days). My kind of weather! The water temperature in False Bay is also pleasant and is between 16-20 degrees depending on how deep you go.

It is a good time to go diving. We will launch from Simon’s Town jetty as usual and the plan is to dive Atlantis and the Ark Rock wrecks on Saturday, and on Sunday Photographer’s Reef and Shark Alley. If you have a burning desire to go somewhere else, let me know and I’ll see what we can do! As usual, text or email me if you want to get on the boat.

Remember

Please remember to have your MPA permits up to date (this applies if you’re coming to Sodwana, too – they will be checked). Also remember that if you book a dive and can’t make it for whatever reason, you need to let me know the evening before otherwise I will have to charge you for the spot on the boat.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Newsletter: Round the Point

Hi divers

Launches

Friday: Roman Rock and Photographer’s Reef , and a night dive at Long Beach. Text me before 10am on Friday if you want to do the night dive.

Saturday (at the crack of dawn): Ark Rock wrecks and Phoenix Shoal

Monday: divers’ choice and Shark Alley

The week’s dives

We were boatless last week so could do shore dives only, but by Friday the boat was back after repontooning.

Leaving the jetty in Simon's Town with our new pontoons — Leaving the jetty in Simon’s Town with our new pontoons

This week we have been blown out most days, but today we headed off to Diaz Beach inside the Cape Point Nature Reserve with a group of very tough and brave swimmers that swam from Diaz Beach to Buffels Bay, a distance of approximately 8 kilometres around the tip of Cape Point. The swim was called Swim for Hope and was in aid of the Little Fighters Cancer Trust.

Swimmers waiting to tackle the shore break

Each swimmer had a support boat and each boat had a shark shield, but there was nothing to shield them from the cold or the huge shore-break they faced at the start. Once round the Point the wind eased and the swell dropped and it was far better. Our swimmer, 61 year old Richard Child, swam tirelessly and had nothing more than a few swigs of hot chocolate on the way. He started with a stroke rate of 70 strokes per minute and ended on 68. Very impressive.

Weekend dives

Tomorrow is a good westerly wind, this will improve the viz inshore so we will do two dives tomorrow from the boat and then a night dive at Long Beach. There is a fair swell this weekend so I think Long Beach would be the best option . Saturday we launch again but it will be really early as the wind is set to pump from midday. On Sunday we are staying home while 35,000 very energetic cyclists compete for space on the peninsula road network.

On Monday we are also launching, and the first dive has not yet been decided (if you book first you get to choose!) but after lunch we will run down to Pyramid Rock to see the cowsharks.

Courses and travel

Currently busy with Open Water, Enriched Air, Rescue and Divemaster. The Sodwana trip is creeping up on us – twelve of us will head off for some warm water on the 26th of April.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Bookshelf: The Rapture of the Deep

Rapture of the Deep: And Other Dive Stories You Probably Shouldn’t Know – Michael Zinsley

I shouldn’t have read this book after The Face of the Deep by Thomas Farber. The comparison is unfavourable. While Farber is lyrical and thoughtful, Zinsley describes alcohol-fueled romps through the South Pacific, Southeast Asia and the Caribbean while working as a diving industry professional.

While most of the observations about the cultures that the author encounters are quite prosaic, this is the first book I’ve read that frankly deals with the commercial side of recreational scuba diving. Perhaps it is necessary to be prosaic in order to discuss this; the reality is far from the romantic vision sold by some of the dive certification agencies. Zinsley describes greedy dive shop owners who send their staff out to dive in appalling conditions, and does not mince words about the paltry pay one can expect as a Divemaster. He observes that Instructors get paid slightly more, but that they tend to spend most of their time in swimming pools, and that a number of them end up as shopkeepers, hardly diving at all.

There are some highly amusing but very politically incorrect descriptions of Zinsley’s former students and clients who dived with him at the various operations where he worked as Divemaster. It seems that a lot of the time, your Divemaster can tell within a few minutes whether you’re going to be trouble on a dive or not. (Try not to be trouble! It’ll keep you healthy – or alive – and make the dive a lot more enjoyable for everyone.) Zinsley describes his experiences with nitrogen narcosis and a scare with decompression sickness.

Zinsley has visited and dived in some of the world’s most exotic destinations, and it’s probably more accurate to classify Rapture of the Deep as a travelogue with diving. This is a light, riotous, unapologetically misogynistic read with no literary pretensions whatsoever. I’d specially recommend it for professionals in the dive industry, who will empathise with much of what Zinsley describes.

You can buy the book here if you are in South Africa, and here if you’re not. If you want to read it on your Kindle, go here.

Newsletter: Big five

Hi divers

Weekend plans

We will launch from False Bay Yacht Club tomorrow and on Saturday.

The past week’s diving

We had a really good long weekend away in the KZN bush and were very lucky to see the big five and a number of other creatures, from chameleons to giraffes. We also watched a cheetah stalk, chase and take down a small impala – a pretty spectacular predation event that we were very fortunate to witness. I’ve been teaching all week, so there are no underwater photos for this newsletter. Can you make do with some terrestrial wildlife instead?

False Bay has been the place to be this week and the water temperature has consistently been between 19 and 22 degrees. It is also the place to be this weekend – well, certainly tomorrow and Saturday, but by Sunday it seems the wind picks up to around 35-40 km/h which will be unpleasant (and unsafe).

The temperature of the Atlantic peaked at 22 degrees yesterday but has dropped down to 10 degrees in the last 24 hours. This normally means clean water and it is quite likely an option for tomorrow, but tomorrow the forecast is for no wind and 30 degrees of baking sun which will probably green the water up really quickly.

Training

We are close to the final stretch for our two Divemaster candidates and for the current bunch of Open Water and Advanced students. In February will might be a little calmer, and we will concentrate or our Research diver program!

Travel

Our Sodwana trip is growing, and at this stage there are 14 of us heading up there for some clean water and lazy beach days. We have been adding people as they express an interest, so if you are keen, mail me for the details.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Newsletter: Shooting animals

Hi divers

Surprised by an early newsletter? Well its going to be short and sweet. We will not be diving this weekend at all, however, the forecast looks good for some really clean water in False Bay so if you can dive, do it.

We have had a mixed bag this week and had some early morning good viz in Hout Bay on Wednesday and ended off with some low viz in the afternoon as the wind died and the water warmed up. It was amazing to watch the bay go dark in a matter of hours.

Our Divemaster candidates had a really challenging course to navigate with a huge amount of task loading to prepare them for the role of Divemaster. We set up a course close to Die Josie that was angled across the current, the wind and the swell to demonstrate the difficulty in finding someone or something in low viz and with a current running.

Yesterday we spent some time at Long Beach and had pretty good conditions. The visibility was perhaps 4 metres, but it was calm and sunny which was perfect for Discover Scuba students.

So far we have thirteen enthusiastic divers heading off to Sodwana on 26 April. If you’re keen to join us, let me know and we’ll do our best to slot you in!

Clare and I are off early this morning, heading north to a game reserve to shoot a few pictures of the wildlife above the water. We are back on Monday and it will be diving as usual next week.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Newsletter: Weather or not

Hi divers

Weekend plans

I plan to spend Saturday boat diving (in False Bay or Hout Bay) with Divemaster candidates. Low viz and lousy surface conditions will apply. On Sunday we will launch at 7.00 AM and dive the MV Aster and the SS Maori, or if the conditions on the Aster are really good and the swell at the Maori not so good, we will dive the MV Katsu Maru.

Drawings of the SS Maori & SAS Transvaal

Sodwana

So far we have nine people heading to Sodwana at the end of April. Clare is confirming the booking with Coral Divers tomorrow, and will send out further details to those joining us. It’s not to too late to come along, but you do need to think quickly in order to secure accommodation, because this is a busy time for Sodwana. Let me know as soon as possible if you want more information. Warm water, lots of colourful marine life – what’s not to love?

Dive report

The wind has made itself felt for most of this month and we have had only a handful of days with really good diving conditions. Never mind, at least there is always somewhere to dive in this city. We have had a weather station on our house since the middle of last year and it shows some very interesting trends. I think the primary reason for the lack of good viz on the Atlantic may have something to do with the fact the wind has been more southerly than south easterly for the last few months. Please note: having a weather station at home does not make you a weather expert, instead it gives you more things to wonder about.

This weekend looks more and more like an Atlantic weekend with the wind that we have in the forecast. Both Saturday and Sunday start off with 20-odd km/h winds and then it climbs during the day. Sunrise is still really early so an early start is what we will plan. Email or text me if you want to dive.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Newsletter: Something to look forward to

Hi divers

Weekend diving

On Friday we are shore diving A Frame as the Divemaster candidates are working on a mapping project. On Saturday the boat will be in False Bay but is already full as we have a bunch of Open Water students to qualify. That leaves Sunday open for two launches to somewhere that we can dive without a white stick. If you want to be notified on Sunday morning as to whether conditions will permit us to dive, reply to this mail or send me a text message.

Last week’s diving

This weekend signals the end of most of the up country visitors’ vacation time, and life slowly goes back to normal. You can once again find parking at most of the beaches and and go back to swearing quietly at the idiots on the road because they could be your neighbour.

It’s been a week of really poor diving with swell, surge and low visibility. The Atlantic is not very clean, and nor is False Bay. The storm that hit the Cape2Rio Fleet did its best to fill the bay with kelp, silt and garbage. Today we have had some westerly winds which has helped to clean this up a little, and the forecast for the weekend is a southerly wind. That’s good in some places in the bay, and not so good in others. Today I was in the pool doing skills and equipment exchange with two Divemaster candidates. At least the visibility there was excellent…

Most of you will be aware that last weekend there was a serious diving accident on the wreck of the MV Rockeater in Smitswinkel Bay. The dive community is a small one, and even though we did not know the diver concerned, we have felt the loss keenly and Clare and I have spent a lot of time discussing it. The full details of what happened have not been released, but there is always something to learn when things go wrong, even from partial information.

When incidents like this occur there is a tendency for them to be swept under the carpet, as people tend to believe that it will cause harm to the dive industry. I don’t share this view. Finding someone to point a finger at has no value (and often there isn’t anyone who can be blamed), but a lesson learned has huge value to a diver who is still on the learning curve. Hopefully we are all still on that curve. Not everyone has a person in their life who understands scuba diving and with whom they can work through an incident like this. If you’d like to discuss it at all, please give me a call or drop me an email.

Remains of a large swell on Fish Hoek beach this evening

Sodwana trip in April

On a much happier note, we are planning a dive trip to Sodwana from 26 April to 30 April. We will stay at Coral Divers and do six dives (at least) over three days, with one day for travel on each side (fly to Durban, drive approximately 400km to Sodwana). This will be a busy time at Sodwana because of the public holidays and the fact that schools will be mostly closed that week, so we need to get into gear quickly on this one.

We’ve done this trip a couple of times before – read about one of those occasions here, and see what kind of diving you can expect here. A hint: it’s warm and colourful! You will need to be a confident boat diver, but an Open Water qualification is sufficient. If you’re interested let me know and I’ll send you more details – you only need to pay a 10% deposit to secure your booking, with full payment due 14 days before our arrival. The Coral Divers price list for 2014 can be found here.

Everyone needs something to look forward to at the start of the year… Think about it!

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!

Newsletter: Waiting for Santa to arrive

Hi divers

Weekend plans

On Saturday we will be shore diving at Long Beach and on Sunday we will be diving from the boat, launching at False Bay Yacht Club. Sunday’s wind is not all that predictable as yet, so we will make a firm plan late on Saturday afternoon.

The water temperature in False Bay is close to the 20 degree mark, so if it’s warm water you have been waiting for then now is your chance. The wind, mostly south easterly, has not really trashed False Bay as it sometimes can but at the same time it has not really cleaned the Atlantic the way it should.

This weekend’s wind will supposedly be more north westerly so False Bay should be quite good for the weekend – not that it’s that bad right now.

Dive update

So, we are into early January and Santa has yet to deliver my present. My request was simple: no swell, favourable winds, and good visibility. Never mind – I am patient and will wait and hope that he arrives soon.

Over the last two weeks we have done some diving, seldom in stunning conditions and seldom with terrific viz… But then Santa may still arrive. December and January are traditionally busy months for courses and we are busy with Open Water, Advanced, Rescue and Divemaster courses right now.

The Divemaster trainees did part of their mapping project at A Frame today and we had 19 degree water and around 5 metre visibility.

Plans for 2014

When the visibility clears up enough for photography (other than macro) we are looking forward to making some contributions to the Spot the Sevengill Shark project. If you want to know what you can do to help identify the sevengill cowsharks that frequent False Bay, there’s some information here, and you should go and like the Spot the Sevengill facebook page, too.

We’re also going to start thinking about dive travel for 2014. We haven’t been to Sodwana for a little while, so I think that’ll be where we point our noses first… Watch this space!

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

To subscribe to receive this newsletter by email, use the form on this page!