A reliable spot to see pyjama sharks (also called striped catsharks) is at the end of the pipeline at Long Beach. Unless raw sewerage is being pumped out there (unfortunately not as rare as you’d think), there is usually a small aggregation of these striking catsharks asleep in the shelter that the pipeline provides.
These sharks are mostly nocturnal, and are endemic to South Africa – found in the Western and Eastern Cape. They eat other small sharks, shark egg cases, and invertebrates.
The second clip, which was taken just a minute or two later, is much darker – the sun was setting at that very moment. At the end you can see Tony in his Batman hoodie. You can also glimpse Craig over the kelp on the wreck, with the buoy line, and Tamsyn in a wetsuit with blue detailing on the arms. We were eight all together for this dive, and the light shed by our torches and cyalumes is quite considerable.
For another glimpse of what night diving is like, you can check out another video here.
Last Saturday we did a night dive at Long Beach. Four of the eight divers were doing their first night dives ever: Craig, Tamsyn, Dinho and Liam. Conditions were excellent and we had a great time. Photos in this newsletter are from that dive.
Liam on the night dive
Weekend plans
As the days grow longer and summer beckons (it’s called positive thinking) we do still need to get through August, which according to the weather sites is the stormy month. There has been little sign of winter during the week and most days have been fairly pleasant. False Bay is quite clean and blue.
That all changes starting late tomorrow as a long period 6.5 metre swell rolls into the bay. That coupled with some rain will make diving a bit surgy and unpleasant, and my feeling is that it best be left alone for this weekend. If you’re at a loose end please pop down to Glencairn Beach or the far end of Long Beach to support the OMSAC Finathon, or take part if you feel up to it! Sponsorship of the divers/swimmers/paddlers can be directed towards Shark Spotters, a cause close to our hearts!
Perlemoen at Long Beach
DAN Day
Last Saturday we attended the DAN Day at the Simon’s Town navy base. We had a tour of their dive training facility (this is most likely where you’ll end up if you need to use a recompression chamber after a dive accident), and then a series of very informative talks.
Pyjama catsharks asleep in the pipeline
DAN or Divers’ Alert Network is an international organisation that provides a form of insurance whereby they will pay for any expenses related to diving accidents that your medical aid and travel insurance don’t cover. They will also pay for you to be evacuated if necessary, and these costs can be severe. However, if you choose not to take out DAN cover, they are still the people to call if you or your buddy has a suspected case of decompression illness. They have doctors on call who will guide you as to what to do, and they will arrange a chamber and evacuation if necessary (however the costs will be for your account). You don’t have to know where your nearest chamber is and whether it’s operational, because DAN keeps that information for you.
Please visit the DAN SA website, check them out, put their number into your phone (0800 020 111 in SA or +27 (0) 82 810 6010 if dialling from outside SA), and let me know if you have any questions (I might be able to help, or I can refer you to someone at DAN who can). Clare and I have cover, and it costs us about R175 per month for both of us. You can also take out cover specifically for a dive trip, if you don’t feel you dive enough to justify year-round membership. For an interesting story about someone who really needed their DAN membership, read this.
Diving and exercise
One talk at the DAN Day that was particularly interesting was about diving and exercise. Studies have found that light exercise a few hours both before and after a dive can be beneficial in reducing gas bubble formation, which is a good thing (too many bubbles cause the bends). The speaker also reminded us that one must keep fit to dive; diving isn’t going to make you fit, but being fit before coming diving will keep you safe and healthy.
So, finally the weather forecast shows a weekend of little or no wind. Our boat has spent the last three weekends on the trailer and not too many weekday launches to brag about either. In fact we have not done nearly as much diving as we had hoped given the nice high day temperatures. Visibility has also been hampered by the strong south easterly winds. Never mind, that’s all about to change. False Bay recovers very quickly when the wind drops and turns and that’s what’s coming.
Our plan is as follows: I have four launches tomorrow so I will spend the day in False Bay, above and below the water. If the viz looks good we will dive the Smitswrecks and possibly Atlantis on Saturday. If the viz sucks we will launch from Hout Bay instead. The Atlantic goes green very quickly once the south easter stops. We will start really early, launching at 8.00 and 11.00 as I need time to fill cylinders for a night dive. The night dive will be at Long Beach and we will meet in the parking at 6.30.
Sunday will be a late start as I will first do a shore dive at Long Beach and then take the boat out.
Text me if you want to dive on any of the days/nights.
Travel
We have still not finalised the details for an Aliwal Shoal trip as the weather has a huge influence on the size of the surf through which the boats launch. We are also still looking at Durban and the wrecks they have as a back up plan and this is the cause of the delay. Well, the real delay is just me, but let’s blame the Durban wrecks.
Durban beach on a windy day
Training
Becoming an SDI Resort Dive Centre was a good move for us and the competitive prices and range of other courses we have added to our selection has been good. January was the first full month and the results have been promising. I now am able to offer close to 30 different training courses in the world of diving. Take a look on the website and see if there is anything that tickles your fancy.
The steps at the jetty have never seen so much traffic!
Last night was the eighth international Diversnight. The aim was to get as many divers in the water as possible at 8.12pm, worldwide. We participated, diving below the jetty in Simon’s Town and really great conditions. 20 divers in total and a big thanks to OMSAC and Cape Scuba Club for joining us. Its not to often you can dive in the basin there as there is a fair amount of boat traffic during the day. The conditions were great given the winds we have had this week and the water was a clean 6 plus metres and 16 degrees. Thanks to Shaheen for being our official photographer!
Setting off on our night dive
The past week has been a very dry week with very little diving but the weekend looks exceptionally good. Last Saturday we took the boat out from Hout Bay to dive the Maori and the BOS 400 but the conditions in the bay were not that great and I felt it was too unsafe to dive. Whilst we were there we were visited by a pod of dolphins and spent 30 minutes on snorkel whilst they allowed us to swim with them. This was an awesome experience as they were very relaxed and swam really slowly amongst the divers and around the boat. There are more photos here.
Dolphins in Maori Bay
This weekend
The wind finally drops, the swell turns to a westerly and I think False Bay conditions will be great. The water colour has remained blueish all week and I think the sites south of Simon’s Town should have great visibility. It also beats the cold Atlantic hands down and the temperature there this week has been between 8-10 degrees celcius.
Exiting the water at the jetty
I have quite a few courses (Open Water, Advanced, Rescue) running right now so we are aiming for a lot of diving. Saturday we will be at Long Beach for Open Water and Rescue training and Sunday we will launch from the yacht club at 9.00 and 11.30.
Clare took this short clip on a night dive we did in February at Long Beach. There were seven divers, and you can see that – contrary to what you might expect – there’s quite a lot of light to see by. The frantically waving torch you can see at one point was me signalling to Clare to come and have a look at a doublesash butterflyfish we’d found. The visibility on this dive was about 5 metres.
This dive was part of JP’s Advanced course and Corne’s Divemaster training; the other divers just came along for fun. You can elect to do a night dive as one of your three dive choices on the Advanced course (you have to do a deep dive and a navigation dive), and you can even do an entire Night Diving Specialty if that’s what floats your boat. Divemasters are expected to be familiar with night diving in order to be certified.
Night diving is excellent training for low visibility diving in general. Divers each carry a torch (preferably two), and we use strobes and cyalumes attached to each diver’s cylinder to keep track of everyone. At the beginning of the dive we cover our lights and allow our eyes to acclimatise to the gloom. It’s surprising how much ambient light there is, specially if there’s a full moon.
Summer is on its way as can be seen by the southeasterly winds that are prevalent during the next few months. The plus side of this is it keeps the colder rainy days away and sends us diving on the Atlantic coast far more often than the False Bay coast. Today the visibility on the Atlantic side is reportedly top to bottom whilst False Bay has between 4-5 metres, less in some places. The downside to Atlantic diving is the temperature, a good few degrees lower than False Bay but with the cold water almost always comes stunning visibility. The boats tend to favour Hout Bay and OPBC for launching during these months.
Fanworm at Long Beach
Rock lobster season is open (or crayfish as they are often called) which means the water will be filled with people trying to catch them for dinner. Due to the limits on numbers and sizes each person may take in a day the authorities are also all over the place watching and checking anyone that has been in the water almost daily. Whilst taking of rock lobster on scuba is illegal some people do and this is the reason they will pay you a visit as soon as you exit the water. The first question will be “Do you have lobster?’’ and the next one will be “Where is your diving permit?” Diving in a Marine Protected Area (MPA) has required a permit for several years now. Its obtainable at the post office, costs around R98 and is valid for ONE year only. Please check your permit and make sure you have it with you when you arrive for a dive with us. You may be denied a dive or denied access to a boat without it as the stories of “arrested for no permit’’… “gear confiscated”… “boat confiscated’’… etcetera are rife. How much truth is there in these stories? I have no clue, but it is not worth taking the chance.
What we have been up to
We did not dive much last weekend as I made a poor decision based on my interpretation of the weather – wrong call, as Grant had 15 metre visibility on the Lusitania. We did however spend some time in the pool with new students, and did one dive at Long Beach on Sunday. Still diving in my book.
Pipefish at Long Beach
The week days have been better with diving on Monday and Tuesday delivering 6-8 metres at Long Beach and 8 metres on the wreck of the Clan Stuart. We will shore dive the Atlantic tomorrow and see if the visibility is as good as the claimed top to bottom.
This weekend
Grant will launch from OPBC and I have booked places on the first launch. Grant will do several launches on both Saturday and Sunday but many people love the clean cold Atlantic water so the boat will fill quickly. Don’t wait until Friday night to try and book. Please note that as of 1 November, prices for boat dives have increased to R220 per person per launch.
Divers descending on the BOS 400 wreck
I’ve included some pictures from last summer’s Atlantic diving to whet your appetite. We are doing the first launch to look for some depth for an Advanced course and then will do a few shore dives at Oudekraal.
Saturday looks really good for a night dive, the swell is small, very little wind and there is still some moon. I will do a night dive at A Frame or the Clan Stuart if there is enough interest.
Seals on Klein Tafelberg Reef
Sunday we will move back to False bay for Open Water students doing dives 1&2.
Pelagic trips and baited diving
A trip out to the tuna fishing grounds to dive with sharks and see amazing bird life has its special place in my style of diving. The whole cage diving and baited shark diving issue is a very contentious one and both sides have good strong arguments yet neither the yeah- or the naysayers have much in the way of scientific evidence. This is largely due to the fact that there is very little funding for such research. But never mind the science, as a diver it is far easier to make a judgment call on such a topic once you have experienced such an event. As with cage diving, baited dives need to be conducted in a safe and animal friendly manor to avoid injury to the sharks. Operators do exist that have respect for the ocean and its inhabitants and take care to ensure no harm can come to the animals.
I want to plan a few trips to the open ocean to photograph and experience these creatures in their own environment. They take some planning and preparation as it’s a long boat ride and the conditions need to be perfect. If you are interested in these trips please mail me so I can start planning a few trips.
Monday was a small taste of what summer holds with temperatures up above the minimum requirement for me i.e. 25 degrees celcius. There was very little wind and the water was great. I spent the day in the pool, but to me that’s still diving.
Surfers near Cape Point
The bay has had a red tide floating about for the last two weeks making dive planning a hit and miss affair, with some sites having diveable conditions and others looking like pea soup, but we have had a few days of north and west winds so I believe it is on its way out. Some of the dive reports have indicated a dirty top layer with cleaner water below the thermocline. This is more apparent on deeper dives. The water today at Long Beach was murky to say the least but may clean up somewhat for the weekend.
Baby baboon hitching a ride
What we have been up to
We cancelled all diving last weekend. Some charters did go out but for the most it was the money hungry ones and the divers did not have anything good to talk about.
Clare and I decided on a wildlife tour instead and went to Cape Point, watched a bit of surfing , had a picnic and said hello to a troupe of baboons. I have my very own chum drum, in the living room, for wet squirrels to find nourishment on cold rainy days. Clare was not to happy when I told her they were hiding peanuts under the carpet… Can’t imagine why!
Our resident squirrel feeds at the chum drum
This weekend
We will do a lot of diving this weekend and a fair amount of camera work. On Saturday we will continue our Open Water courses. I also have a film student starting an Advanced course this weekend so our diving will focus on cameras – video and still – so if you have a camera and want to join or use one of mine then text me. I am going to do a night dive in the next week or so, when the conditions are good, so if night diving is on your to-do list text or mail me and I will keep you in the loop.
How can you not love that face?
Sunday is a little more difficult to plan. The Big Walk happens on Sunday and one part of it starts at Long Beach with many of the other legs on the main road. Possible traffic delays – if possible come over Ou Kaapse Weg. If Grant launches on Sunday I will text anyone that has indicated they want to be on the boat… Text me something like ‘’boat Sunday’’ and I will put you on the list.
Goot, Tami, Tony, Clare, Gerard and Cecil, ready for a night dive on the Aster
I’ve never done a night dive off a boat before, and never gone deeper than about 12 metres on a night dive, and so it was with mixed feelings that I signed up for a night dive on the MV Aster in Hout Bay, on the evening of 17 September. We’d spent the morning diving in Hout Bay harbour as part of an OMSAC-organised underwater cleanup, and in the afternoon Underwater Explorers was running some boat dives. The visibility on the 2.30pm dive we did on the Aster was passable – not midsummer Atlantic clarity, but a respectable 8-10 metres. I spent most of my time on the deck in the centre of the wreck, on top of the bridge, and around the base of the mast. A strong current was pushing into Hout Bay. The wreck is at about 30 metres on the sand, and the deck is at about 24 metres. The top of the bridge is at 19-20 metres.
A tube worm retracts into its shell
We launched for the night dive just before 6.30pm. On the boat was Tony, who has done lots of night dives (many off a boat, too), me (who has done lots of night dives, but all shore entries close to the city lights), Tami (ditto), and Goot, Gerard and Cecil, who were all doing their first night dive EVER. I don’t think they realised how awesome they were… Descending 25 metres onto the deck of a wreck, into the 11 degree waters of the Atlantic, in the dark, is something quite special!
The Aster is eerily illuminated by our torches
We rolled into the water just before 7.00pm, and descended on the shot line. The first few moments were quite disorienting – it was very dark, much darker than the surface conditions hinted it would be, and it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust and for me to figure out where I was on the wreck. Soon I was more relaxed, and I managed to hunt down the tiny basket stars I’d found on the afternoon dive so that I could show them to Tami. I was glad that I’d done an afternoon dive on the same site – it helped with orientation in the dark, and I enjoyed going back to places where I’d seen things a few hours earlier to check whether they were still there.
Basket star feeding at night
Tony and I were wearing our Christmas strobes – awesome little gadgets except that the gaps between the flashes can be a bit long when trying to do a quick head count. We also had multiple cyalumes and some rather old glow in the dark Bright Weights (weights is a misnomer here – they are in fact positively buoyant). Those didn’t work too well, but we’re not going to give up on them just yet – perhaps more time under a bright light and/or in the sun will charge them better.
The mast of the Aster at night
Doing a safety stop in the dark is a challenge. I didn’t realise how much I rely on having a visual reference – even just watching the depth on my dive computer – to manage my buoyancy at the end of a dive. Using other divers as a reference is not ideal – what if they’re using ME for a reference too? This dive was the first time I’ve used the backlight on my Suunto D6 since I’ve had the computer (about 40 dives), and I realised that the default setting it’s on (illuminates for 5 seconds) is hopelessly and irritatingly too short for a safety stop in the dark. I was also wearing an unbelievably buoyant second wetsuit over my usual Mares Trilastic, which had me shooting towards the surface like a very large cork every time I broke the five metre mark. All this aside, we managed – all of us, together – a safety stop, and then we were on the surface around the buoy, looking for Richard and the Underwater Explorers boat.
The Underwater Explorers buoy on the surface
It was very, very peaceful on the surface (until Gerard started on about the crotch strap of Cecil’s new Poseidon wing, purchased for his forthcoming cave diving adventures), and the air wasn’t cold at all. Getting on the boat was a bit of an exercise – dive gear being predominantly black. The boat was far enough from shore that there was very little ambient light to assist the skipper and us in stowing our kit properly, but Richard was organised and quick, and we managed. We had a wait of a couple of minutes for Alistair and his two buddies (all on twins) to surface, and then we headed back to dry land, a warm shower, and the deep sleep that always follows a day of diving.
Tami, Gerard and Cecil waiting to board the Underwater Explorers boat
Dive date: 17 September 2011
Air temperature: 23 degrees
Water temperature: 11 degrees
Maximum depth: 25.3 metres
Visibility: 10 metres (always tough to estimate on a night dive, but we did do a dive at the same site a few hours earlier)
