Dive date: 17 April 2011
Air temperature: 24 degrees
Water temperature: 24 degrees
Maximum depth: 17.8 metres
Visibility: 20 metres
Dive duration: 60 minutes
Dive sites (Sodwana): Pinnacles (south)
Category: Dive Sites
Places to dive – in Cape Town and elsewhere
Dive sites (Sodwana): Pinnacles (north) – part 2
Dive date: 17 April 2011 Air temperature: 23 degrees Water temperature: 23 degrees Maximum depth: 12.8 metres Visibility: 20 metres Dive duration: 53 minutes
Dive sites (Sodwana): Pinnacles (north)
Dive date: 17 April 2011
Air temperature: 23 degrees
Water temperature: 23 degrees
Maximum depth: 12.8 metres
Visibility: 20 metres
Dive duration: 53 minutes
Miracle Waters inland dive site
Quarries filled with water are very often used for diving. Some have terrible visibility whilst others seem to have reasonably clear water given the right conditions. Just outside Brits (a one horse town close to Pretoria) lies such a quarry and this is called Miracle Waters.
The maximum depth is 33 metres and the visibility is between 5 and 10 metres most days. There are training platforms at various depths for all training levels and I think that perhaps 75% of the divers in the greater Johannesburg area do their qualifying dives either here or at a place called Bass Lake south of Johannesburg.
The area is well laid out with campsites, chalets, a picnic site and braai areas. There is a filling station with a compressor big enough to handle the numbers so a weekend away here for diving is possible. Night dives are also a possibility. Cylinder hire is available but you must book . The shop has food, snacks, gear rental and gear sales and is open 7 days a week.
Dive sites: A Frame
Shore diving in Cape Town can feel quite adventurous, often requiring as much mountaineering skill (with 20 kilograms of kit on your back) as it does buoyancy control! A Frame (also called Oatlands Point) is one of the most special shore entries on the western False Bay coast, and we visited it on a recent cloudy Sunday with perfect sea conditions. It requires a bit of walking and a tiny bit of climbing, but it’s nowhere near as strenuous as a shore entry at Shark Alley, for example.
To reach A Frame, drive past Simon’s Town golf course and Fisherman’s Beach, and park – almost immediately after the beach – on the left hand side of the road between the two houses with interesting roof features (one has a solarium vibe going with some British flags, the other has a clock). One used to be able to cross the grass of an empty plot and walk straight down to the rocks, but that plot has been fenced off (with a white picket fence!) now, so one has to use the little path to the right of it, under the No Parking sign.
The entry that we usually use (the northern entry) is over a large piece of rough granite known as “slippery rock”. There’s a conveniently placed rock to hold onto when entering and exiting – basically you inflate your BCD, hold onto your fins, put your mask around your neck, and walk in as far as you can. Then either giant stride off the edge of the rock, or slide down on your bottom until you’re in the water (warning: this can be hard on your suit!). Put your fins on as soon as you are floating – you’ll be in 3 metres of water already so you won’t be able to stand. There’s a lot of kelp there so use it to keep still, and move slowly and steadily. The exit is similar – come as far as you can with fins on, take them off, stand up, watch the waves (if any) and grab onto the rock by the exit as soon as you can reach it.
When you climb in at A Frame you’ll be landing in a sandy basin surrounded by rocks. The depth is about 4 metres, and there’s not a lot on the sand, but it has a peculiar beauty to it and it’s very sheltered. The rocks are to the south and east are where your primary interest will lie, however.
The site is rich with invertebrate life – massive anemones of all colours of the rainbow, abalone, urchins, sea stars, nudibranchs and fairly prolific fish life characterise the area. A Frame is partly inside the Castle Rocks restricted zone which means no fishing or harvesting of marine life is allowed.
There are kelp forests around most of the rocks, and on the day we dived this site in May we had spectacular top to bottom visibility. My favourite part of A Frame is the large swim-through to the north of the big white rock that breaks the surface. This is a dog-leg cave formed by three or four huge rocks that almost meet at the top. There’s a narrow gap where your bubbles can escape (which I am grateful for, because none of the creatures in the cave are drowned in air then!) and three entrances/exits. Inside the swimthrough you’ll find urchins, anemones, nudibranchs, sea fans and lots of fish taking shelter. A torch is recommended. It’s short, not scary, and spectacularly beautiful. A huge orange wall sponge can be found at the spot we prefer to use as an exit – the opening opposite goes out into quite shallow water where you can get tossed about by the surge.
Dive date: 22 May 2011
Air temperature: 20 degrees
Water temperature: 14 degrees
Maximum depth: 7.3 metres
Visibility: 12 metres
Dive duration: 37 minutes
Diving in the I&J Predator Exhibit at the Two Oceans Aquarium
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6L7qQHShEo&w=540]
For Tony’s birthday in June last year we went diving in the Two Oceans Aquarium in Cape Town’s V&A Waterfront.
[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LrCKjipQws&w=540]
There’s much to be said for diving in an aquarium – for one thing, the conditions are always perfect. You can’t get lost, and you will probably get to see a whole lot of creatures, all at once, that you either can’t see in the sea at home or that it’d be very unlikely for you to encounter on a single dive. Also, you feel like a bit of a celebrity having large groups of people watching you through the tank windows.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15713EtqlJY&w=540]
These videos were all taken in the two million litre I&J Predator Exhibit. I sat on the sand and watched the ragged tooth sharks, while Tony chased the tiny devil and eagle rays with his video camera.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDYp4-mJF6I&w=540]
The raggies are all female, and spend a year or two in the tank before being released back into the wild. They were chosen for the aquarium because they’re a species that has been successfully kept in captivity, and because their toothy faces fit the stereotype of sharks that most people have in mind. Their placid circles around the tank are anything but threatening, however.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNPgE0IuT_E&w=540]
The giant short tailed sting ray, Olive, was fascinating to watch (a video of her can be found here) but she sadly passed away late last year.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJnHPy9wyRI&w=540]
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTbYoFYUttI&w=540]
In addition to the ragged tooth sharks and rays, there are several large fish – musselcrackers, yellowtail, garrick (leervis), and kob. Some of the garrick in particular look a little the worse for wear… I wouldn’t want to share a tank with a shark!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d57S1Z7HucE&w=540]
A large school of sardines was introduced late in 2010 (after these videos were taken), and their manoeuverings have been lovely to watch.
[youtube=www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8uwmJIEq_s&w=540]
The loggerhead turtle’s name is Yoshi. When we met her she was in the corner of the tank (I was allowed to pet her – her skin feels soft!) and Tony and I both thought that she seemed a little depressed. On my volunteer shifts, however, I usually get tea time to coincide with the predator tank feeding at 1500. Yoshi is full of beans then, and sometimes the diver who hand-feeds her has to fend her off as she swims her massive 120 kilogram body right over his head in pursuit of snacks.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxI7JE_3ogM&w=540]
Dive sites: Wonder Reef
I think Wonder Reef (or Wonderful Reef) used to be considered separate from the Castor Rock reef. Survey work by the indefatigable Peter Southwood has revealed that it is in fact connected to Castor Rock by a thin neck of rocks. If you look at this map of the area, Wonder Reef is to the south of the Castor Rock area, in the top left hand corner of the map.
We dived this site with Kate and Andrew, who was doing a photography dive for his Advanced course. The water was very green – the colour of an Appletiser bottle and in some of the pictures I took it looks distinctly like a night dive – but I had fun getting some close-up pictures of the very lush and colourful reef life.
The rocks are covered with anemones, feather stars, sea cucumbers, and nudibranchs. I also found an huge octopus – I don’t often spot them anywhere other than Long Beach!
Kate was my buddy, and I kept thinking I’d lost her when in fact she was swimming just above me, looking over my shoulder at the things illuminated by my flash. On the way up, Tony and I were visited by a sea jelly. This picture shows you how dirty the surface layer is – it was taken at the safety stop.
Dive date: 2 May 2011
Air temperature: 21 degrees
Water temperature: 13 degrees
Maximum depth: 16.8 metres
Visibility: 5 metres
Dive duration: 38 minutes
Dive sites: MV Rockeater
I’ve dived the MV Rockeater once before, on the first dive of my Wreck Specialty course. Unfortunately my camera – while safely inside the housing – had its lens cover closed, a fact which I only discovered when I was 20 metres below the surface. We did another dive here in early May, with some of Tony’s students. This time my camera was on!
The Rockeater was used for doing seabed surveys, and was equipped with a drilling derrick and a helicopter pad. The former was removed before scuttling and now lies next to the wreck. I particularly like this dive, and it might be my favourite of the Smitswinkel Bay wrecks, because the ship is full of features not seen on the other wrecks (which are fishing trawlers and naval frigates). It’s a wide, bulky ship with lots of stuff sticking out of it.
Like the other wrecks in Smitswinkel Bay, the Rockeater is heavily encrusted with invertebrate life. There was a dirty surface layer when we dived her this time, but the visibility at the bottom was quite special despite the relative darkness. I experimented with turning the flash on my little camera off to try and get some wide angle shots – I met with mixed success. The colours are washed out (as expected), but you can get an idea of the scale of the vessel. My camera (a Sony DSC-TX5) is very good in low light – if I can keep it still, I expect this method will work quite well in good visiblity.
We spent most of the dive on the bow of the wreck. There are large pieces of railing sticking up, and I was amused to observe Kate spend a good few minutes assessing a gap to decide whether she could fit underneath it. She did!
Dive date: 2 May 2011
Air temperature: 19 degrees
Water temperature: 10 degrees
Maximum depth: 29.8 metres
Visibility: 10 metres
Dive duration: 29 minutes
Exploring: Ark Rock Boiler Wreck #3
We did two short exploration dives around Ark Rock on 21 March. The first was to a small wreck roughly east of the rock itself, and the second one was to check out a pair of boilers lying on the sand s short distance apart. There’s nothing else around except for some rocky reef, which Tony and I explored for a while after we were done with the boiler.
The boiler looks quite imposing – for the technicalities on fire boxes and things visit the Wikivoyage page for Ark Rock, but it’s solitary and impressive. There are no other bits of wreckage lying around. Most of the boiler is very overgrown, and we found a huge roman hiding in one of the holes in the boiler.
The rocky reef close to the boiler is covered with sea cucumbers, Stephens codium, brittle stars and feather stars.
Tony and I were fascinated with the sea pens sticking out of the sand, and I spent quite a while watching a warty pleurobranch trying to walk over a brittle star (who fought back).
We took a slow swim around the reef and back to the boiler and the shot line, which was on the sand nearby. The water was very green, but the visibility was fairly respectable!
Dive date: 21 March 2011
Air temperature: 25 degrees
Water temperature: degrees
Maximum depth: 16.4 metres
Visibility: 6 metres
Dive duration: 21 minutes
Exploring: Ark Rock Eastern Wreck
Ark Rock is a roughly rectangular flat topped rock (surprise!) off Seaforth beach. On the navy charts it’s marked as Noah’s Ark – its distinctive shape gave rise to the name – and divers typically refer to it as Ark Rock. There is an assortment of small wrecks and other interesting underwater features surrounding it.
Tony and I were fortunate enough to join a small group of divers who planned to explore two undived features that had been spotted on the sidescan sonar attached to the dive boat. Two short dives were planned, so that we could explore more than one site in the area. It was the first weekend since summer started departing that allowed for good False Bay diving – until then, we’d been flailing around in pea soup.
The first site we were to visit is about 85 metres from Ark Rock, roughly to the east – hence the name “Eastern Wreck”. It’s a smallish iron or steel vessel that has been down there for some time. Its actual identity is not known. As we descended through a murky surface layer, we could see almost the entire ship before us.
It’s probably about 15 metres long, only a hull, with some gaps and holes large enough to admit a diver. Even though there were only six of us in the group, it felt pretty crowded on the wreck at times because it’s so small. It might be a fishing boat or similar vessel.
The wreck is lying on the sand and is heavily grown over with lovely sea life. There’s no interior structure and no deck or other bits and pieces lying around. I found it really pretty and of an appealingly manageable size to explore in one dive. We only spent 20 minutes on the wreck, which was long enough to survey the structure, but I could have stayed longer and checked out more of the life encrusting the metal remains!
My photos from this dive aren’t great. I was a bit enamoured of the shape of the wreck – so easily identifiable as a ship – and the good (comparatively!) visibility, so I took too few macro shots and too many green water pictures of indistinct shapes!
Dive date: 21 March 2011
Air temperature: 25 degrees
Water temperature: 8 degrees
Maximum depth: 10.1 metres
Visibility: 6 metres
Dive duration: 21 minutes
