Everything ocean related, with a special focus on scuba diving the rich coastal waters of Cape Town, South Africa.
Here is some pretty terrible footage that Clare (she admits it) took while we were diving at Marico Oog. There is so much natural light in the shallower water that her camera got totally confused! But it gives you an idea of what the place looks like.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4y28A4kOV0&w=540]
Marico Oog is a natural spring, the source of the Marico River. It is located on a farm in the North West Province of South Africa, and we visited it on our way home from Botswana in March. It’s possible to dive in the spring, which is mostly why we took a detour off the N4, the boot of our tiny rental car loaded with a couple of rented cylinders and our dive gear.
The water in the Oog is crystal clear, and water lilies grow around the sides in the shallow (1-3 metre deep) water. The bottom is covered by lush green vegetation that looks like salad, and the bottom in the deeper areas is silty and causes great clouds to obscure the visibility when it is disturbed. Entry is via a ladder, and the initial swim is through shallow water filled with lilies, their long stalks curling towards the surface, where lily pads provide landing spots for dragon flies.
A small pool (less than 10 metres wide) that drops down to about five metres’ depth appears on the right; the very bottom here is muddy, but lilies line the edges. A small ridge separates this pool from the main pool, which is perhaps 20 metres across and has three distinct zones of vegetation. The top area surrounding the pool has a flat bottom and is covered with water lily plants. From 3-6 metres there is green foliage, and from 6 metres to the bottom of the pool is mud.
A platform is suspended from drums at about 6 metres, and is used for skills training by the Johannesburg dive schools who sometimes bring their students here (not much sea in Gauteng). At the very bottom of the pool, a pipe descends under a rock, from which the spring water is collected for bottling. The rock apparently forms part of a swim through, which I was not about to try. Willie, the owner of the farm, told us that a trained cave diver had reeled out 100 metres of line (resonably taut, I hope) in a dive beneath the rock, so there’s enough space to travel quite far below the Oog towards the very source of the spring.
The fauna inhabiting the Oog is not prolific, but we saw several crabs in the mud, and a number of fish. I’ve struggled mightily to identify the fish, some of which seem to feed from the silt at the bottom of the pools, and others of which look like bass or tilapia and were seen with a huge cloud of fry. There are also eels, but we didn’t see any. We did spot a giant monitor lizard clambering about at the edge of the reeds while we were watching birds returning to roost in the reeds and feed at the Oog in the evenings.
It was interesting to dive in a freshwater environment – in contrast to the usual 7 kilograms of weight I use to sink me and my 8 millimetre Cape Town wetsuit for a shallow dive, I wore 3 kilograms, and not even on a weight belt. Two kilograms were in my BCD pockets, and the 3rd kilo, added as an afterthought, moved from by sternum to behind my knee during the course of the dive. The migration of a square block of lead through my wetsuit was something of a distraction, it must be said.
Marico Oog is a popular night diving destination, and when the moon is full it must be magnificent. It is recommended that not more than eight divers use the Oog at one time, and even this would be quite cramped for my taste. We were fortunate enough to have it all to ourselves, and for my second dive of the day I was all alone. Tony observed the most of my second dive from the pontoon attached to a cable that can be pulled out over the Oog – it was novel to dive in water so clear that we could see each other in the different mediums.
I’ve been wanting to go to Marico Oog since Tony told me about it when I met him, but thought I’d never get there because it’s so remote. Actually, it fitted in quite well with flying to and from Lanseria airport and driving to Gaborone – we took a lot of dirt roads to get there, but there’s a tarred road running straight past the farm from Zeerust. If you’re in the vicinity and fancy some total relaxation and beautiful diving, a visit to Marico Oog is highly recommended.
Dive date: 22 March 2012
Air temperature: 24 degrees
Water temperature: 20 degrees
Maximum depth: 12.4 metres
Visibility: 15 metres
Dive duration: 36 minutes
Marico Oog is a natural spring located on the Grootfontein farm in the North West Province, belonging to Willie Muller and his family. We took a detour from Zeerust to the farm in order to dive in the spring, and to spend a couple of days without cellphone signal (MTN only) and without the distractions of life in the city. We were accompanied by our non-diving buddy Ian, who is a serious twitcher and brought his long camera lens to spy out the local birdlife.
There are three chalets at Marico Oog, only one of which has a toilet. Guess which one we chose. There is an ablution block for use by the inhabitants of the other two chalets (which do have baths/showers) and the campers – camping is allowed anywhere on the grounds. No appliances, cutlery or crockery are provided, so you have to bring just about everything including bedding. There are fridges in the chalets and fitted sheets on the beds but otherwise it’s quite rustic. I liked the thatch roof and the shady interior of the chalet, but Tony didn’t enjoy the occasional spider that passed by!
Each chalet has a balcony area with a braai – the one we were in had a huge stoep and space for five to sleep in the same room. It’s the furthest from the water, but the walk is neither far nor demanding. There is a lot of grass to run around on (if that’s your thing), and the chalet we were in is well spaced from the other two, which are back to back. There’s a water slide on the grass left of left the middle of the map, but I’m not sure whether it’s functional.
The swimming pool (top right in the map above) was almost empty, which made for some lovely photographic opportunities. Ian found three mice (one dead) in the pool, and several frogs. To me the bird life was quite diverse, but there didn’t seem to be anything on the farm that couldn’t be seen elsewhere. Each evening we sat on the pontoon on the Oog and watched barn, white-throated and greater striped swallows coming to feed at the water and roost in the reeds. It’s very quiet and peaceful there, except for the inhabitants of the neighbouring farm, who share part of the water and seemed to enjoy fishing with beers in the evenings.
There are no compressor facilities at Marico Oog, so you have to bring everything you need. We rented cylinders in Johannesburg, one each. Because the Oog is at most 13-14 metres deep and on average more like 5 metres deep, you can dive for a couple of hours on a cylinder if you want to, so it’s not really necessary to rent a pantechnicon to transport your dive gear. The water is about the same temperature as False Bay in summer (19-22 degrees).
Access to the water is via a ladder, reached by walking along the left hand path you can see leading to the water on the map above. The right hand path leads to the pontoon raft.
Marico Oog water is bottled and sold as Vippita spring water.
Hi divers
Clare and I were away last week and despite the modern world in which we live we stayed in a place called Marico Oog that had no cell phone reception. In order to download text messages it required a drive of some distance to a hilltop for signal, quick replies and then back down the valley. Despite (or because of) the lack of contact with the outside world we had some awesome diving in the source of the Marico River, crystal clear water, 21 degrees and the nice part was diving with no weight belt!
Prior to the trip up north I had a very busy stretch and it has been pretty much the same since we got back. The weather did not play along for Saturday’s dive planning but Clare and I did get a real early start and when for a boat trip at Zeekoevlei to test a boat. Very windy and very dark brown water but a very nice boat ride. Two hours later the boat stood outside in our driveway. Watch this space!
Sunday we had a very cold, clean deep dive in the Atlantic, chilly 10 degree water. I have been in or on the water all week. False Bay is still pleasant at 19 degrees and on my way to Simon’s Town this morning I counted no less that 30 fishing boats between Muizenberg and Simon’s Town. The bay is teeming with big schools of fish right now. The water is not all that clear and the last few days reports from Seal island and partridge point have been 2-4 metre visibility.
Plans for this weekend are not cast in stone as yet as I want to wait and see what the water looks like tomorrow after today’s strong winds and rain. It was not all that great today as there was a fair amount of swell and the viz was a low 2-3 metres. Hopefully the wind will have cleaned the bay up somewhat.
I have a list of people that have all indicated a keenness to dive this weekend so I will text everyone on that list tomorrow evening. If you haven’t been in touch and might want to dive, you know what to do.
The very first Cape Town Dive Festival will take place at the Cape Boat and Ski Boat Club at Miller’s Point, on 10 and 11 August 2012. Visit the website, think about participating (boat dives are only R100), and let me know if you’d like to do some dives with us on either of the days. It’s going to be a super event and the aim is to promote diving in Cape Town, something that we are very enthusiastic about.
regards
Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/
Diving is addictive!
Hi divers
This will be a short and sweet newsletter. Sorry it’s late! A power failure last night that lasted until well after bedtime meant that our wireless was down, and since we live in a black hole for cellphone reception, the 3G modem wouldn’t co-operate either.
The Argus took place on Sunday and sent all of us to Gordon’s Bay for some diving. We dived with Indigo Scuba and dived a site called Steenbras Deep. It was a little green, no, a lot of green water until around 15-18 metres at which point it cleaned up a fair amount. The thermocline was also very noticeable on my dive computer and the temperature dropped a good 5 degrees. The eastern side of False Bay is also a spectacular piece of coastline to view from the ocean. Thank you everyone that got up early and took the trip out there so we could explore some new territory!
This week I have dived most days and have been very surprised by the number of huge schools of fish in the Bay. The water temperature is also still hovering at around 20-21 degrees celcius. The rays are also very keen to show off (some on youtube here and here) and I have had a few really amazing displays of their swimming, flying, and gliding techniques plus their ability to reduce the visibility to near zero when they take-off or hunt a snack buried in the sand.
We are all set for Mozambique, 7th – 12th May: good diving, clean warm water and lots of beer and rum sorry, make that coffee and sunshine… You can still sign up, just tell me you’re interested. Those of you who have spoken to me about the trip will receive a separate mail.
It is the Simon’s Town Navy festival which means a HUGE amount of traffic, very little parking and many delays as there are not too many ways into and out of Simon’s Town. There will also be really strong southeaster on Saturday with a hefty sized swell (not what False Bay needs to clean up the visibility) so I think our plan will be as follows:
I do not feel it will be good conditions for any Open Water training dives so for those still on course, sorry but we will need to wait for next weekend!
Clare and I are off to Botswana to do some admin and see friends, and to Marico Oog for a day or two of freshwater diving. We’re leaving on Monday, back on Friday so we will miss the public holiday on Wednesday. However, next weekend we will be diving, conditions permitting. I’m not sure we’ll be able to get a newsletter out on Thursday as we’ll be in the middle of the North West Province with limited data coverage, but I’ll be in touch by text or email on Friday.
If you’re looking for something to do, you can visit the You Tell Me section of our blog, where there are various polls for you to answer. Click here. Also check out the Cape Town Dive Festival which is happening on 10-11 August 2012 from Miller’s Point, and start thinking about how many boat dives you can safely fit into a weekend!
You all have a super weekend and be safe.
regards
Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/
Diving is addictive!
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.
