Here’s the parking area at Windmill, courtesy of Google maps. Make sure you get a car guard if you go diving here. To get to the beach, walk down through the low gate and follow the path as it curves to the left. This is a popular picnic and wedding spot, too.
I have done one prior dive on the SS Maori, about a year ago. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life, one I am not keen to repeat. The boat ride was harrowing – we took the narrow channel between Duiker Island and the mainland, and I had my eyes closed for most of it. I am not a good sailor, but Tony is, and even he was seeing his life flash before his eyes. Huge waves were coming from all directions and we later learned that the skipper had been so terrified negotiating the channel that he’d called the owner of the dive shop as soon as he’d dropped the divers into the water, and practically sobbed.
Klipfish on the Maori
We were actually intending to visit the BOS 400, but when we got there the surge through the wreck was incredibly strong and the entire superstructure was creaking ominously. A call was made to go to the SS Maori instead – it’s a couple of hundred metres from the crane and the wreck is scattered on the seabed rather than being still mostly intact. The dive itself was extremely stressful – maybe 3 metres visibility, temperatures so cold that I sucked my tank dry in about 20 minutes (ended up on Tony’s octo), strong surge on the bottom that made it impossible to control where one was going, and I honestly didn’t see anything that I could describe as a wreck.
Tami zoning in on something interesting
The experience we had diving the Maori on Reconcilation Day could not have been more different. Tami and I were finishing our Wreck Specialty course, Cecil was finishing his Open Water course, and Tony had a group of casual divers with him. The boat ride was a pleasure, apart from the smell (or rather, taste!) of the seals on Duiker Island as we sped past. The water was so blue that Grant could see the wreck below us while he dropped the shot line.
Iron water pipes on the Maori
The SS Maori ran aground in Maori Bay (named after it) in 1909 in thick fog. The ship lies perpendicular to the mainland, depth ranging from about 6 metres down to about 22 metres towards the centre of the bay. The ship was carrying a cargo of railway lines, cast iron pipes (visible in great stacks that are very tempting to try and swim through – common sense won out), explosives, and crockery. A fair amount of beautiful porcelain is still visible on the site, but apparently it’s been well worked and looted over the years.
Looking through a pipe
The visiblity on this dive was sufficient (20 metres or so) for us to be able to see far down the ship as we explored. Parts of the wreckage are very broken up, but there are large parts of the wreck that are relatively intact. We descended on the engine block, at the shallow end of the wreck, and into beautiful kelp forests that glistened green in the clear water. It was cold, very cold, but having something amazing to look at tends to distract one from the inconvenience of chilly fingers.
Rock lobsters on the Maori
As far as sea life goes, there’s a fair amount of kelp and other sea plants. Oscar found me a huge cuttlefish to photograph, just posing nicely on a rock, and there were some molluscs, the odd nudibranch, lots and lots of rock lobsters and crabs. We also saw a nice school of hottentot. Like the BOS 400, though, you visit this site first to look at the wreckage. Anything else you see is a bonus.
Cuttlefish on the Maori
I can see why the Maori is such a popular dive site – we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and Tami and I were heartbroken when we had to ascend, as our air reached 70 bar. It’s a very large site and several dives are required to appreciate its full scope. I plan to do those several dives, and then some!
Wreckage of the Maori
Dive date: 16 December 2010
Air temperature: 23 degrees
Water temperature: 4 degrees (that’s what my computer said!)
Tony and I recently attended the annual Christmas party of False Bay Underwater Club (FBUC), of which we are members. Tony was a member of the Durban Undersea Club while he stayed up north, but it’s my first experience of belonging to any sort of club (except, of course, for the Cape Town Girls Club, of which I was a founder member at the age of ten) – let alone a diving club.
There are numerous benefits – among them, cheap gear hire, free air fills on club days (Wednesday evenings), and access to courses at reduced rates. FBUC offers CMAS courses to its members and other interested parties, and Tony, Kate and I recently completed a compressor operator course there. The club periodically performs ocean cleanups (Simon’s Town yacht basin was their last one), and is involved in several social responsibility projects – for example, the gifts and baby supplies that we brought to the Christmas party are to be donated to the Beautiful Gate in Crossroads, which cares for babies, children and families in the community, many affected by HIV/AIDS.
FBUC Christmas tree
FBUC also holds weekly club dives – there’s a mailing list that informs members where to meet, what day (usually Sunday), and what time. Tony and I have not had a chance to explore any of the Oudekraalshoreentrysites yet, and that’s been on hold while we sort out a wetsuit for him that isn’t quite as highly ventilated as his current one, but we look forward to tagging along on some club dives to learn the shore entry dive sites we don’t know in Cape Town.
The thing we have been enjoying most, however, is the access that club membership gives us to the accumulated knowledge and experience of the other members. There are members who are photography gurus, those who manufacture their own gear and accessories, those who repair and service dive kit, mapping and dive site gurus, and experts on marinelife. It’s here that we got to check out Diver Propulsion Vehicles (DPVs) first hand. (Tony immediately added one to his Christmas list… high hopes!)
Monty checking on the progress of the snoek on the braai
We’ve learned a huge amount just chatting to other members over a drink (or a fish braai) on a Wednesday evening at the club. It’s been lovely to meet interesting, like-minded people who love the ocean and exploration and are happy to discuss it.
Everything I’ve described regarding False Bay Underwater Club also applies – one way or another – to the other main diving club in Cape Town, Old Mutual Sub Aqua Club (OMSAC). We accompanied some of their members on a cleanup dive on Robben Island earlier this year.
It’s not particularly cheap to be a member of a dive club, but I think it’s been well worth it so far. Not so much for the gear hire and air fills – Tony has his own gear and requires air fills FAR more often than once a week – but for the other reasons I’ve mentioned.
Here’s A Frame, courtesy of Google maps. You park in front of the grassy patch, walk down a flight of stairs to your left, and trundle over the grass to your entry point just in front of the house to the left.
I didn’t realise this article had actually been published until today – there were some (shall we say…) technical glitches in getting the pictures sorted out… But The Urban Times has published an article I wrote based on our Robben Island diving adventure in September (part of the OMSAC coastal cleanup activities).
Tony toting our absolutely enormous dive bag off the ferry
You can read the full article here. It’s not terribly different to what I posted on the blog originally, apart from some additional historical context. What is really exciting is for South Africa, and South African diving, to get some exposure!
Tony and I have been itching to dive the jetty in front of Bertha’s for some time. We enjoy eating take away dinners on the steps there, and watching the fishermen trying to catch squid for bait in the evenings. We finally found time while on honeymoon, and went there with Kate to see what we could find.
Not a good place to surface carelessly
Despite being told by an officious member of the public that what we were doing was HIGHLY ILLEGAL and that we would get RUN OVER BY A BOAT (which became a possiblity when we found ourselves in a metre of water in front of a slipway at one point) or worse, blasted out of the water with space lasers and locked up in lead-lined cells for the rest of our lives, the Navy Ops Room were totally chilled about it when we called them.
Under Simon's Town jetty
We did giant strides in from the steps on the left hand side of the jetty. The tide was out, so the bottom few steps were green and very slippery. A small crowd of onlookers gathered to observe us. We had hoped to spend much of the dive under the jetty, but when we got in a very strong current and mounds of sea lettuce – the most irritating plant in the world – caused us to ditch that plan and swim around the jetty and to the west, towards the exit of the yacht basin.
Sign in Simon's Town yacht basin
The visibility was good, and the sea lettuce was only intermittently annoying. We met lots of klipfish, some very friendly. Only one shyshark made an appearance, but large numbers of abalone colonise the rocks and tyres down there. It’s not as full of litter as I’d expect – I suppose I should have learned my lesson about how clean harbours can be with our Robben Island dive – and everything that is lying in the water has been heavily encrusted with coralline algae and sea plants.
Friendly klipfish coming in for a look
We spent most of the dive at around 2 metres – it was low tide and it’s not deep there at all. Under the jetty we found enormous false plum anemones, fanworms, and some very interesting encrustations on the pillars.By the end of the dive the current had lessened, and the conditions there were much more suited to a leisurely exploration.
False plum anemone (and sea lettuce) under the jetty
Getting out took a bit of thought and acrobatics (fortunately no audience except for the self-appointed policewoman of Simon’s Town) because the tide had gone so far out that we couldn’t get onto the bottom step of our entry point without taking our kit off, climbing a small ladder, walking along a crossbeam, and stepping from there onto the step, which was covered in green slime.
To get out, we climbed up the ladder...... walked along the crossbeam...... and up the steps
Verdict: This is definitely a site to be dived just before high tide, much like the Knysna lagoon, to facilitate entry and exit and to ensure that you aren’t fighting the current the whole time.
Atlas of Dive Sites of South Africa & Mozambique – Fiona McIntosh
Atlas of Dive Sites of South Africa and Mozambique
This is a brand new release from MapStudio and diver-author Fiona McIntosh. McIntosh specialises in outdoor adventure topics (hiking routes, caving, etc.) and she has produced a handy volume detailing the best dive spots around South Africa in some detail. The “atlas” moniker is accurate: the volume includes maps of the whole area, with inserts depicting the dive sites in question. This potentially enables experienced divers to explore sites independently of a local operator.
There are only a few sites featured in each area, but the dive sites featured are the “best” in each location. They have been selected on the basis of safetly, and pristine condition. There are additional sites listed, along with their locations, but maps and reviews only appear for the short list of top dive sites in each place.
There are lots of interesting sidebars detailing local attractions (for example, a shyshark and catshark feeding dive offered in Mossel Bay, seahorse hunting in Knysna, the chokka dive in Port Elizabeth every August, and shark cage diving in False Bay at Seal Island). The dive site descriptions include details of what marine life can be seen, and the nature of the entry (important for shore dives). Made me want to put on my kit and get in the water again as soon as possible! The weekend is too far away…
I was interested to see the quality of diving offered on the south coast in locations such as Plettenberg Bay. Apparently there are also some super dives in Hermanus, though no permanent dive operator there. The atlas definitely made me want to travel!
At the back of the atlas is a section on marine life, by SURG‘s Georgina Jones. It’s a whirlwind tour, of necessity, since it covers not only the Cape but the entire South African coastline.
Dive Atlas launch function
The book also includes contact details of the various dive operators around the country, as well as general dive tourism information. I was pleased to note that in the Cape Town section, McIntosh includes the web address of Peter Southwood’s wikivoyage page on diving around the Cape Peninusla and False Bay for those who require more detailed information.
Tony and I attended the launch last week, at the NSRI Station at the Waterfront (very cool venue!) and enjoyed catching up with the diving establishment of Cape Town. Fiona gave a whirlwind tour of diving in Southern Africa (the Mozambique section of her talk – and of the atlas – made me drool), and Georgina did a natural history tour of Cape diving for us. We are definitely very fortunate here in the Cape!
If you’re a Cape Town diver, I certainly hope you’ve taken advantage of the incredible – I repeat, incredible – shark diving opportunity that is right on your doorstep. I’m not talking about shysharks… I’ve got the sevengill cowsharks at Shark Alley, just inshore of Pyramid Rock, in mind.
Shark Alley is a shore entry site just past Miller’s Point, though it’s a tricky climb down the hill and over the rocks so many dive centres do boat dives there as well. The maximum depth is about 12 metres, and the site is characterised by beautiful pink-encrusted rocks, sea urchins, and waving kelp fronds. That’s not why divers go there, however. They go there to visit the cowsharks.
Just a few metres offshore, in a bare patch in a V-shaped space in the kelp, we settle on the sandy bottom and wait for the sharks. They don’t disappoint – Shark Alley is their meeting place, where they hang out during the day, and you’re almost guaranteed a sighting or five.
Tony and a cowshark - I love this picture, looks like he's hiding in the kelp... But the shark is behind him!
These beautiful creatures grow to up to 3 metres in length – a lot of fish – and are curious, swimming close to divers to take a look. You can see their eyes following you as they pass by, close enough to touch… But don’t!
Not much is known about these sharks. They are ambush predators, hunting in packs, in poor visibility (so a night dive or a dive at Shark Alley when the sea is very murky is something to think about very carefully). They eat other sharks, seals, fish, and pretty much anything they can get their teeth into.
Sevengill cowshark that swam underneath me on a dive
We’ve seen as many as 15 different sharks on one dive, and on repeat dives we have recognised the same specimens over and over. Many of the sharks have big bite and tooth marks on their sides, and bits out of their fins… Some of this is from mating behaviour (apparently a bit violent), but possibly also from fights between the sharks. They will eat each other if the opportunity arises, being fairly indiscriminate when it comes to diet.
This shark appears to have been badly bitten - much of its tail is missing
It’s not clear whether they leave Shark Alley at night to go hunting, or whether it’s a place they come to to rest, socialise, or hide. The actual number of cowsharks passing in and out of False Bay isn’t clear either – we don’t know what fraction of the total population the sharks we see at Shark Alley represent.
Broadnose sevengill cowshark in dodgy visibility
Some of the sharks we see have white spots on their backs – one in particular we call Tipp-Ex because of the size and number of spots. The spots are caused by a fungus – I’m not sure if it’s harmful to the sharks, and whether they catch it from one another through contact when feeding or mating.
The photos in this post were taken on the same dive during which we had a close encounter with a very confident female cowshark. You can see that the visibility was extremely poor (so apologies for the photo quality!). The video footage is from prior dives.
Nudibranchs are wildly colourful invertebrates that look like psychedelic underwater slugs. There are countless varieties but it takes a practiced eye to spot them. My excitement when I do find one is totally out of proportion, but I do love these little critters!
Gas Flame nudibranch on the SAS Pietermaritzburg
Nudibranch means “exposed (nudi) gills (branch)”, and on almost all varieties you can see little protrusions that are those very gills – looking like fronds. The visual extravagance of these creatures cannot be over-stressed… Their beauty is totally unncessary, and all the more delightful for that.
Gas Flame nudibranch on the SAS Pietermaritzburg
Their bright colours tend to warn predators that they aren’t tasty, and nudibranchs have some very ingenious defence mechanisms (thanks to the Two Oceans Aquarium for teaching me this!). They eat things that are unpalatable or indigestible to most other sea creatures, including sponges and hydroids with stinging cells. Some nudibranch species then retain the stinging cells in their bodies, piggybacking off their lunchtime snack’s defence tactics.
Crowned nudibranch on the wreck near the yellow buoy at Long Beach
We do see nudibranchs at Long Beach – I’ve seen three or four species there, most often the orange-clubbed nudibranch. These tend to be spotted feeding on kelp fronds. Other species can be seen on the rocky reef to the right of the pipeline, and in lesser-dived areas such as the wreck near the yellow buoy. A Frame is another good spot for finding them, particularly in the swim-through. Careful inspection will be rewarded. There are also several varieties unique to the Smitswinkel Bay wrecks – the mechanism of this differentiation astounds and fascinates me – but I haven’t as yet managed to spot any except for a gas flame nudibranch this past weekend on the MV Rockeater.
Gas Flame nudibranch on the SAS Pietermaritzburg
Another frequent sighting at Long Beach is the warty pleurobranch, a devastatingly cute and cuddly little slug. They seem to have such personality, with their little eye stalks and bulldozer front ends. They’re not colourful, but lots of fun to watch. We often swim over them in the beds of sea grass, and sometimes on the sand.
Dive Atlas of the World: An Illustrated Reference to the Best Sites – Jack Jackson (editor)
Dive Atlas of the World - edited by Jack Jackson
Tony gave me this gorgeous coffee table book that will have you desperate to get on a plane and fly over to the Bahamas or Truk Lagoon in Micronesia. It features articles on the best diving around the world, including one by our own Chris Fallowsabout shark diving in Cape Town.
Even though it covers some of the most popular and well-known diving destinations, it did reveal some others to me. I had only read about Scapa Flow in the history books, but apparently there is amazing (and terrifying, and freezing cold) diving in amongst the wrecks there. Malta sounds gorgeous, and some of the nicest dives there are shore entries which scores big points in my book.
There are also articles on diving the East coast of South Africa – Sodwana, Aliwal Shoal and Protea Banks. Ponta do Ouro also features – a spot very familiar to Tony, who worked there for six months last year. It’s exciting that these local (and nearly local) destinations are ranked among the best diving in the world.
This book isn’t useful as such – in fact, it was the opposite of useful to me, because it’s just made me desperate to pack my bag for twenty exotic diving destinations! That said, it’s gorgeously put together, and excellent for some armchair dive travel if the budget doesn’t permit a trip straight away!
It’s available here if you’re South African, otherwise click here.
