Unless you’re some kind of diving celebrity, you’re probably only friends with at most a few tens of other divers, and you probably feel comfortable seeking advice from a somewhat smaller number of those. The odds of any of them having tried out the new underwater camera you’ve got your eye on, or having taken a diving holiday to Croatia, let alone several (so that you can compare a range of experiences and dive operators) is slim. Luckily the interweb is vast, and there are a few places you can go to harness the collective wisdom (sometimes not so much) of the global scuba diving community.
Scubaboard is vast and varied, with sections for everything related to diving that you can imagine… Photography, gear, travel, accidents, health, and every flavour of technical and recreational diving under the sun. One can get lost trawling around in here, and it’s a great place to find information on something a little obscure or unusual.
Reddit is the so-called “front page of the internet”, a news and content aggregator whose user base occasionally makes headlines (example) for the wrong reasons. Use with caution. My suggestion would be to read but not to get involved with discussions (you don’t need an account to browse the site), but that’s because I’m conflict averse and scared of strange men on the internet. It’s very easy to get caught up in a manner of thinking and interacting that you wouldn’t use in a face to face situation or with people you know in real life, but if you’re confident and have a thick skin there are some very interesting areas of the site to explore. The scuba and diving subreddits are quite cool places to hang out – not as active as some of the other parts of the site, but they probably benefit from having a more select group of users who are focused on the sport. Go check it out for yourself – maybe you’ll love it.
DIR Explorers is for devotees of “doing it right” (DIR) – a style of diving that can be applied in both a recreational and technical context, but has some particular practices (all carefully thought out) that make it quite distinctive. You don’t need to be a DIR diver yourself to derive great benefit from the discussions on this site.
LinkedIn has a few groups you can join if you’re a member, and you can start and participate in discussions relevant to the aim of the group. I belong to the Divers Alert Network group, PADI Scuba Divers group and the PADI Pros group. (I haven’t checked out whether there is a NAUI or SSI representation but I’m sure there is!) Unfortunately you can’t browse the content of any of these unless you are a member of LinkedIn and a member of each group as well. If you do join some LinkedIn groups, check the number of members so you don’t end up in a tiny community. There also isn’t a bulletin board or forum structure with topics clearly delineated – discussions arise and fade away but aren’t organised in any way.
On the local front, a group I’ve quite enjoyed is the Underwater Cape Town facebook group. It has a high ratio of inactive members to active ones, but there’s often interesting content and it’s a good place to get the latest news pertaining to local diving and conservation issues, and to ask for advice on photography and identifying species in your photos. It’s not so much for questions on diving technique, though. There is relatively little sales activity and spam which is a bonus.
I met an abalone poacher some time ago – just after I first came to Cape Town. He’d brought his regulator in for repairs to a dive shop that I happened to be visiting. When the technician opened it up, it was packed solid with particles of rust from his dive cylinders. Confronted with the information that it will cause him to drown one day if he doesn’t bring his cylinders for a visual inspection and hydrostatic cleaning, the poacher explained that his dive cylinders wouldn’t pass a visual, because they’re painted black (instead of South Africa’s regulation grey and canary yellow).
His cylinder isn’t the only thing that is painted black. ALL his dive gear – wetsuit, booties, hood, gloves, regulator, hoses, first stage, pillar valves, BCD, mask, fins, torches, dive computer – is black. There’s not a single reflective surface anywhere. According to the poacher, if he was standing by the side of the road in his dive gear at night, fully kitted up, and you drove past, you wouldn’t see him. At all.
What does he do with all this stealth gear? He dives, alone, at night, to fetch abalone (perlemoen) from the sea. His dives are often to 50 metres, on air, and he has no redundancy in his setup. No alternate air source on his cylinder (“For whom?” he asked), and no buddy. He sometimes does four such dives a night, and can make R40,000 for a single night’s work.
His view of what he does is that the abalone lives in the sea, and if he goes and fetches it, it’s his. “The ocean is free,” he said. Hardly anyone else is prepared to do four night dives in a row to depths of 50 metres with no support except for a boat on the surface (with no lights showing), and to look for abalone and pry them off the rocks with a crowbar. Why shouldn’t he reap the rewards? He told me that he’s not taking money from poor people – he’s only taking from the ocean, and it’s a big place.
It’s dangerous work, too (and not just because of the way he dives). There are rival poaching groups on the south/east and west coasts, and a police crackdown on the west coast has brought “boatloads” of their poachers across to this side of the world. Shots have been fired, cylinders have been filled with water (hence at least some of the rust), and a simmering atmosphere of impending violent conflict has arisen.
This was the first time that I’d talked to a poacher, and it gave me a lot to think about. This is a world that we don’t necessarily have any insight into as recreational scuba divers, even though we know that what the poachers do is wrong.
Clare and I have seen poachers once or twice before, filling cylinders or buying gear (lots of it, expensive stuff) from dive shops all over. I’ve also seen more than one at Miller’s Point, early in the morning. One tried to sell me his dive gear for money to get home, because his friends had left him alone at the slipway wearing nothing but a wetsuit and his trenchcoat.
You may wonder why I am mentioning this. No one talks about it in the dive industry because it’s awkward and poachers have a lot of cash to spend on gear and air fills. But there is value in looking at hard issues. Tomorrow there is some more reading about abalone poaching, and it’s very thought provoking!
As you drive into Simon’s Town, the first row of shops on your right hand side is home to a small shop belonging to Andre Botha, a well-respected Cape Town diver and SDI diving instructor who now concentrates on more land-based activities… Including assisting divers of all levels of experience with their purchases of dive gear. His shop doesn’t have much signage outside, but it’s the very first shop in the row and you will probably realise it’s associated with diving from the banners and maps in the window!
Andre stocks or can order equipment from Seac Sub, ScubaPro, Mares, Tusa, and several other dive gear manufacturers. He is also the person you want to speak to if you want to do full face mask diving in Cape Town. He can take you on a full face mask “try dive” to convince you how cool it is, or sell you Ocean Reef full face masks and communication sets. He also sells shark shields for surfers and divers.
He has led an adventurous life and has travelled to some wild places (most recently to Marion Island), and seen and done some amazing things. If you stop by at his shop, he can give you advice and insight born from a wealth of experience over many years. What I also appreciate very much about dealing with Andre is his absolute integrity, and in this he is an example to the entire dive industry.
You can email Andre or call him on 082 324 3157. His shop is in the Squires Building, Station Road (the Main road), Simon’s Town.
Many of the divers who regularly dive with me will know Kate, who came out to South Africa for two months in late 2010 to qualify as a Divemaster. She had never dived before when she arrived, and I took her through a full Zero to Hero course, including 60 dives to meet the requirements for Divemaster, before she went back to the UK.
Some peaceful no mask breathing
Headstand
Kate rests easy in the pool
She returned to South Africa in April (her family joined her here for a short holiday) to prepare to do an Instructor Development Course, for which she had to get her dive numbers up to 100 dives. She did her IDC with Danny Martin, who trained me and who I rate as one of the best Instructor trainers in South Africa. We asked her to write about what the IDC involves so that those of you who are curious can get an idea of how one works.
The PADIIDC is an instructor development course that consists of two halves, the first (three days) is Assistant Instructor and the second is Open Water Scuba Instructor (four days). The final two days are when the Instructor Examination (IE) takes place. An examiner is brought in from somewhere else (usually outside the country) to test the candidates. We also spent an extra day doing the EFR Instructor course.
An exam (made up of 5 parts: physics, physiology, environment, equipment, and standards and procedures)
Prescriptive teaching presentations (taking a knowledge review question and expanding on it so as to help students understand the answer in more depth)
Confined water presentations (giving a pre-dive briefing, demonstrating the skill, having the student demonstrate the skill and then giving a debriefing)
Open water demonstrations (same procedure as in confined water, except that the Instructor does not demonstrate the skill this time)
Watching risk management and marketing presentations
Testing our own skills in the pool, for ease of understanding and ability to demonstrate
Rescue workshops
The main aspect of the IDC is preparation. After completing my Divemaster course with Tony, he then made sure I fully prepared for the IDC. There’s not a lot of new information to learn as most of it is covered in the Divemaster program but having someone to test me on everything was rather handy. Tony also took the time to do one to one pool sessions in which he would make sure my skills were above the standard needed. He also ran me over what to expect from the IDC and how to prepare myself.
Sodwana was a great place to complete my IDC. The environment is really friendly and the diving is exceptional (it was a minimum of 26 degrees at all times!). The accommodation is tents or wooden cabins, and they have a bar and a restaurant. There is a tractor service to take you to the beach every 45 minutes.
I definitely would recommend doing the IDC, for me it has opened up a new love for diving. It takes you further then being just a Divemaster and gives you more responsibility within the diving community. You also find that the experience increases your diving ability and performance.
I started diving in October 2010 with my Open Water and completed my IDC in June 2011. I also completed a load of specialties and am now preparing myself for a trip to the Arctic circle.
Kate is now a PADI Open Water Scuba Instructor. When she has done 25 certifications, she will be certified as a Master Scuba Diver Trainer – this means she can teach courses from Discover Scuba Diving and Open Water up to Divemaster, along with a list of Specialties. I am very proud of Kate and really enjoyed teaching her. She impressed (andoftenwildlyamused) everyone who met her while she was in South Africa and she will be a great ambassador for diving. I am looking forward to following her adventures!
Sharks are cool. Even three year olds know that. They’re charismatic, beautiful, and images of these creatures in their natural element generate a certain frisson of excitement in even the most jaded shark watcher. Sharks are also in mortal danger, worldwide. Populations of all kinds of sharks are in decline, and – being slow growing, late-reproducing creatures – they are in no position to recover without some assistance.
3.5 metre female great white shark
Enter the “shark activist”, “shark conservationist”, “shark advocate” or “shark [dramatic, Chuck Norris type noun]”. They may work alone, or be part of a “worldwide network”. The ones you’ve heard of probably have a website full of photos and videos of themselves with sharks, often accompanied by embarrassingly self-congratulatory text proclaiming how “highly successful” they are, how they have achieved “major success”, and, of course, their “efforts are recognised worldwide”. They are strident, and constantly inserting themselves into situations that might bring them (not necessarily sharks) publicity.
The “shark activist” probably has a naff nickname – like (I made this one up, for Julius Malema) “Shark Comrade” – which may be branded onto the side of their expensive and trendy recent-model motor vehicle. (Their website will of course also mention how hard it is to be a “shark activist” and how many sacrifices have to be made… Such as choosing the manual model over the automatic? Foregoing metallic paint?) The “shark activist” also has enemies, and there may be a strange subtext to much of their self-promotional material alleging political manoeuvrings and other mysterious unseen forces working against their selfless efforts to improve the lives of sharks.
This is all good and well – I have no objection to anyone else’s rich fantasy life, or to anyone’s efforts to deal with self-esteem issues by frantically blowing their own trumpet to all who will listen. I can always choose not to pay attention.
What I do object to is the exploitation of sharks in all of this. Yes, there is “exploitation” in a general and harmless sense – these “activists” adopt sharks as an icon, design cute logos featuring sharks in profile, and brand themselves and their gear until there’s no free space left… This is innocuous and offends no one. No one owns the shark as a trademark, and no one is harmed here.
But there is also exploitation in one very specific and, to my mind, harmful sense. Sharks are wild animals, and we are guests in their realm. Holding onto them, hitching a ride on their dorsal fins, or any other physical contact not initiated by the shark (i.e. not a bite!) is exploiting the creature in order to feed one’s own ego. I don’t care if it’s “safe” or “safe only to very experienced shark activists”. I don’t care if you feel such passion for the creatures that you simply cannot keep your hands off them, and every time you go in for a grope a photographer “happens” to be there pointing his Ikelite housing in your direction. I don’t care if you need a new image for the front page of your website or a new facebook profile picture. It is exploitation and abuse. It draws attention away from sharks. At worst, it chases sharks away from places that they would otherwise frequent, and robs respectful ocean users of the opportunity to enjoy them too. It modifies sharks’ behaviour towards humans. At best it encourages other foolish, less experienced and less cautious divers to attempt the same kind of exploits. When one of those sheep gets bitten, the party is over for everyone.
He’s so brave and strong! What a manly man! (Swoon!)
Phwoaaaar! She’s so hot! What a sexy lady!
And, most of the time, that is probably what people do think. Having a large number of male fans (if you’re a lady shark hugger) or female fans (if you’re a male shark hugger) doesn’t mean – at all – that you’re doing a good job for sharks. It means you’re doing a good job of self-promotion, and probably nothing at all for sharks.
This kind of exploitative behaviour is by no means limited to “shark activists”, or even to sharks. It also seems obligatory for free divers and free divers slash models and those who are old and wise enough to know better to be pictured getting to grips – literally – with the ocean’s top predator. Whales and dolphins are also sometimes subject to this abuse. Sometimes the person involved is clearly ignorant or thoughtless. But some of the pictures of divers holding onto sharks are taken by well-respected and incredibly talented photographers, which makes me very sad. Others are taken of people I honestly thought – from their other work – would have strong convictions about this sort of thing.
Cape Town divers – those who respect the ocean and love its creatures – know not to try to touch the sevengill cowsharks when they dive with them, because it will modify their behaviour towards humans (as, indeed, it already has – those who have been diving with the cowsharks for many years can attest that they are far more confident, curious, and even aggressive towards divers at times than they were ten or fifteen years ago). Why should standards be different because the shark is at Aliwal Shoal, in the Bahamas, or anywhere else?
Photographers such as Tony Wu and (I think) Thomas Peschak are able to photograph marine animals in their natural habitat without touching them or allowing their human photographic subjects – if any – to mount the creatures like quad bikes. I enjoyed this photo gallery of free divers with sharks – not touching them. But I’m almost scared to dig into the body of work of some of the underwater photographers whose skill I admire, in case I find images like the ones I am describing here. (Researching this article got me so riled up and then so disappointed that Tony had to talk me down from a parlous mental state.) Has anyone taken a stand against riding sharks for publicity (or any other purpose)? Please, please let me know if they have!
I suspect that the real “shark activists” are the ones I’ve never heard of, never seen a photo of, and (thank goodness) never had the misfortune to see in a swimsuit. They are the ones who actually DO things, make a difference, speak to government and industry bodies, help draft proposals and bills, write letters, and get their hands dirty behind the scenes. They are far too busy helping sharks to be photographed. Prove me wrong.
One rainy Thursday in June Tony and I attended the first of what will hopefully be a monthly series of talks at the Save Our Seas Shark Centre in Kalk Bay. The speaker was Christopher Neff, a PhD candidate at the University of Sydney. Chris is doing his doctorate on the politics of shark attacks, and was in South Africa to learn more about our Shark Spotters program (and to meet some great white sharks).
He spoke about his doctoral research, and described how perceptions of risk and other factors influence government responses to shark attacks. I was struck by a couple of things:
It isn’t all Peter Benchley’s fault
Sure, Jaws demonised sharks and I don’t think Peter Benchley is wrong to feel some residual guilt about the ensuing panic and slaughter of creatures assumed to be bloodthirsty maneaters. The phrase “shark attack” – as opposed to the previously popular “shark accident” – was invented in 1929 by Australian surgeon Sir Victor Coppleson. He mounted a one man crusade, alerting people to the dangers of sharks, in response to a fatal shark attack off Sydney that year. He published a book on the subject of shark attacks in 1958, and was considered a world authority on the subject. Shark nets were installed on the beaches of New South Wales in the early 1930s in response to the findings of the Shark Menace Committee appointed to study the issue of human-shark interactions.
Shark spotters is unique
We’ve posted before about Cape Town’s Shark Spotter’s program on this blog, and I consider myself fairly familiar with its workings, but Chris’s talk shed new light on the program’s importance and singular success.
I was particularly struck by the uniqueness of the Shark Spotters program in the world. In response to the fatal 1929 Australian attack mentioned above, a program functionally identical to our Shark Spotters (observers watch for sharks, and warn bathers to exit the water) was proposed. The program never took off, and the reasons for this – chiefly stemming from a lack of agreement by stakeholders and their conflicting aims – form part of Chris Neff’s PhD studies.
In other countries (such as Australia) and even in parts of South Africa (Durban), shark nets are popular and are widely considered to be very successful. Brazil used hooks laid on the ocean bottom near the beaches, and Hawaii has recently taken down all the interventions that could kill sharks in order to protect humans (nets among them, I think).
The Cape Town Shark Spotters program was started in 2004, and since then just under 1 000 sharks have been spotted in the waters around the Cape Peninsula. The proposal to start the program succeeded where the 1929 Australian proposal did not, for several reasons:
Strong backing
The City of Cape Town, surf lifesavers, the trek fishermen, and community groups all backed the proposal. South Africa has a strong history and cultural ethic of wildlife conservation, and the proposal for a shark spotting program dovetailed nicely with this.
Agreement among proponents
It was agreed that any management program should address all the problems raised by human-shark interactions:
altering human behaviour
restoring confidence to enter the water
conserving the sharks
The shark spotting suggestion deals with all of these issues equally well. (Shark nets, for example, answer the first two concerns but not the third one.)
Feasibility
The local trek fishermen have been watching for sharks from the top of Elsie’s Peak for decades. They had thus proved the feasibility and affordability of the solution.
Trek net fishermen at Muizenberg
(Tony took the picture above from the top of Boyes Drive, next to the Shark Spotter’s hut.)
Comprehensiveness
Shark Spotters answers public concerns about going into the water, as well as environmental concerns, because no sharks are killed as a preventative measure. Shark Spotters use a siren to encourage people to get out of the water when a shark is sighted, and provide them with information when visibility is too poor to identify sharks in the water (via a black flag – see the image below). Hourly water use around shark warnings indicates that the public has developed a high level of trust in the program, as surfers and swimmers return to the water when the all-clear signal is given. (Initially this was not the case – the beach would empty after a shark sighting.)
Cape Town’s topography and ocean conditions make it uniquely suited to this type of effort. There are elevated geographic features such as hills and mountains from which observers can watch for sharks, and the water is clear. Durban installed shark nets over 50 years ago, and while the bycatch is appalling (dolphins, turtles, etc) this seems to satisfy the stakeholders that Durban’s large number of water users, drawn by the warm waters lapping the coast, are protected. What’s more, the tiger and bull sharks common on the KZN coastline are not endangered, whereas the local great white shark is. A shark net solution for Cape Town would fly in the face of all conservation principles.
Black Shark Spotters flag flying at Fish Hoek indicating poor visibility
Tony and I appreciated Chris’s philosophy on information sharing, and particularly his comment in closing that “while my research is independent, the funding is not.” Too much research is conducted using donations from the public, and then kept secret. Unless you paid for the research yourself, it’s not yours to keep! We’re grateful to Chris for sharing.
One of our divers, Bernita, has started a small business called Errand Girl, and we thought we would give her the opportunity to tell you a little about herself and what she does:
I consider myself an avid diver, although I’m sure Tony will tell you otherwise as I’ve not been in the water much of late!I started diving in Honduras in 2003 and have more or less been hooked ever since. In 2005 I traveled to Thailand where I did my Advanced course and fun dive after fun dive. Eventually my Thai visa expired, forcing me to travel to neighboring Malaysia, where I found the most beautiful rustic island I could have imagined (the Perhentian Islands) and set up home base there. I did my Rescue and Divemaster courses and worked as a Divemaster for two years. Finally I decided to take the next step and become an Instructor (I did my IDC at FloraBay Dive Center). I spent the better part of 6 years in South East Asia, working in the industry, or going on dive holidays (some people call me a “dive-dork” but I don’t mind, ‘cos it’s true).
I decided though, in June last year, that it was time to move back to Cape Town, mostly to be near to my family. I still wonder what I was thinking, giving up a life filled with beaches, sunshine and diving, but nonetheless, here I am.Initially I returned to the advertising industry, but recently decided that an office job was just too much for me to bear. So I decided to start a small business that would keep me on my toes and take me out and about. Hence, the birth of Errand Girl.
Here is some information Bernita’s business:
Errand Girl is a lifestyle management and concierge company. We aim to give you the ultimate gift: more free time to do with as you please! We offer a helping hand, making sure all those to-do’s get done, so you don’t have to think about them again. If you don’t have the time or inclination to attend to a task, we will take care of it entirely.
The list of services we offer is vast and tailored to each client’s needs: Errand Girl can drop your lawn mower at the repair shop, pop into Woolies for the forgotten groceries, gather quotes for that long awaited irrigation system, collect a birth certificate from Home Affairs, meet the plumber mid-morning to repair the burst geezer, find a fairy for your daughter’s birthday party, pay your traffic fines – we can send, phone, research, find, quote, arrange, meet, collect and deliver – you name it and we’ll do it.
Errand Girl charges an hourly rate for services rendered (excluding expenses incurred and petrol outside of the Cape Town CBD area). We send you a monthly statement reflecting how and when your time and money as been spent. We do not charge a commission on purchases or services sourced.
If you are interested to learn more about what Errand Girl offers please go to my website, www.errandgirl.co.za.
Bernita checks out a wall in the chilly Atlantic
Bernita also told us about some of her favourite diving in South East Asia (which makes me want to pack my dive gear and hop on a plane right away!). Here are her recommendations:
I wanted to tell you about a couple of my favorite Asian dive spots, but its too difficult to name just one so here’s a short(ish) list:
Malapascua (Philippines): Here they have almost daily sightings of thresher sharks and regular visits from manta rays and eagle rays. There is also great macro diving there, although the fish population is small and coral reefs have fallen victim to dynamite fishing.
Apo Island (Philippines): A very well managed marine park with huge populations of fish, sharks and rays and pristine reef.
Coron (Philippines): This place is unique in that an entire fleet of World War II Japanese ships was sunk in this bay so this is a wreck diver’s dream destination. The dive operators there allow full wreck penetration and the ships still have a lot of equipment and artifacts to see. There is also lots of fish life at these wrecks. Also very cool is Barracuda Lake (which houses no barracuda or other fish for that matter?!) but is cool because the top 6 metres consists of cold fresh water, then from 6-18 metres is warm (28 degree) salt water and below that from 18-30 metres is hot (37 degree) salt water. At 30 metres the water turns literally black- if you stick your hand below the 30m mark it disappears. I found it cool to see the thermoclines in otherwise clear still water and to feel the heat on the way down and the cold on the way up (I would advise definitely not to wear a wetsuit). You do however have a short climb up a limestone rock face, dive gear and all in order to dive here. I thought it was well worth it!
Komodo National Park (Indonesia): “Wild” diving with some crazy currents but amazing sightings. Loads of sharks (black tip reef, white tip, grey reef), dolphins, manta rays, as well as excellent macro dives. Another great thing about diving in the area is the opportunity to see Komodo dragons in the wild. I did a liveaboard in this area, which I can highly recommend as land based diving here requires long boat journeys and grotty hotel accommodation.
Bali (Indonesia): Bali has a lot of good and varied diving to offer. I dived the USS Liberty wreck in Tulamben. This dive sight is great as its only 30 metres off shore and max depth is 30 metres. The visibility is generally 15+ metres and the wreck is home to a huge variety of life from pygmy sea horses and ornate ghost pipefish to giant barracuda and schools of surgeon fish. I also dived off Nusa Lombongan and was lucky enough to see quite a few manta rays and sunfish (mola mola).
Lembeh Straights (Indonesia): if you like hunting for the weird and wonderful, it just does not get better than this! Lembeh has huge numbers of nudis, wonderpus, flambouyant cuttlefish, blue ringed octopus, pygmy sea horses, bobbit worms, hairy frog fish… the list is literally endless.
Sipadan (Malaysian Boreneo): Clear warm waters (visibility of 20+ metres), pristine reefs, loads of fish, turtles and sharks, lots of schooling barracudas and bumphead parrot fish.
(If you’re if heading to Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines or Malaysia and would like advise on dive spots, places to stay, food or other, please email me on bernita@errandgirl.co.za I’ll be happy to help if I can.)
Bernita now braves the relatively cool Cape Peninsula waters as often as her (busy) schedule allows. Why not check out the Errand Girl website to see whether she can help free up some of your time… To go diving of course!
Here’s a reading list of diving adventures, old and new, spanning all kinds of diving. From Arthur C. Clarke’s chronicles of diving the pristine Great Barrier Reef and Sri Lanka several decades ago, to more modern accounts of wreck diving around the world, you’ll be sure to find something that meets your reading requirements here. Get set for an armchair diving adventure of note!
