Buoy – Page 2 – Learn to Dive Today Blog

Guest post: Christo on encountering a great white shark

Yesterday we had Craig’s point of view… Here’s Christo van Schalkwyk’s account of the Clan Stuart dive on which he and his fellow divers encountered a white shark. Christo has been diving since March 2012, and in the time since then has logged over two hundred dives, most of them here in Cape Town.

About 30 seconds into the dive, just as I got to the bottom, a little to the north of the engine block, I saw the shark approach from the south. It swam past us towards the north. It turned and swam back down the wreck in a southerly direction, on the inshore side. For a while it was out of sight. We kept looking out for it, while motioning to the other divers to bunch together and stay low on the wreck. A few seconds later we saw it approaching from the south again. I could see both eyes as it swam straight at me. When it was about three metres away it veered off slightly to swim past us, parallel to the wreck. At this point it was only about two metres away from Craig and me. I remember choosing the spot where I was going to hit it if turned back towards us.

Fortunately it kept gliding past and as the pectoral fins came past, something seemed to disturb it. It flicked its tail once and shot away to the north. (Seeing the video taken by Vlad later, it seemed as if one of us exhaling was what disturbed the shark, but this is only speculation.) After a second or two, it was out of sight and we didn’t see it again.

We crouched down low on the wreck, looking around, and repeated the instructions to the other divers to keep close and low down. At this time we saw Sergey coming towards us from a rocky outcrop (or piece of wreckage) about 3-4 metres away from the main wreck, towards the deep side. We beckoned (with some urgency) to him to come closer. He swam quite slowly towards us, but when he got close enough, we pulled him down onto the wreck with us. As he was positioning himself, his weightbelt caught on a piece of the wreck and came off. I had to help him put it back on from underneath.

We stayed where we were (just north of the engine block of the wreck) for about another minute or so. I remember looking at my dive computer which read 2 minutes at that point. It didn’t seem a viable option to surface, even though I knew Tony would be close with the boat. I didn’t fancy the notion of hanging around on the surface, trying to get all 6 divers on the boat, all the while not knowing where the shark was. After another half a minute or so, Craig and I had a hand signal discussion on what to do next. He suggested heading south down the centre of the wreck, in the opposite direction to the shark’s last known heading. I thought we should go for the beach, to the north west. We agreed on the beach and started off in that direction, staying very low.

Just before leaving the wreck, Craig’s weight belt came loose as well. I took the reel from him and held on to his BCD with one hand and the wreck and reel with the other, while he tried to put the weight belt back on. This seemed to take forever – I remember seeing Vlad sliding in under a raised sheet of steel and hiding there (and feeling a bit jealous of his nice cover…). Eventually I gave the reel back to Craig and got him to hold on to the wreck and got in underneath him to try and see what the problem with the belt was. Once the belt was back on, we dropped down onto the sand on the shore side of the wreck.

Then we had to swim over the sand, without cover, towards the beach. It took a while to gather the group together to do this. We stayed very low, flat on the bottom. As we swam the group seemed to fan out, so we stopped once or twice to reassemble. Craig kept watch to the north, while I scanned the southern arc. Once we got into shallower water the surge took us along quite quickly and the group spread out even more, but it wasn’t possible to do anything about that any more. We got tumbled a bit in the breakers on the beach, but in the end managed to help each other to the beach unscathed with only the loss of one mask.

Total dive time: 13 minutes
Boat entry, shore exit.

Christo’s diagram of the dive site, with indications of what happened where, is below. Click on the image to enlarge it!

Skipper’s notes on a great white shark encounter

I would never consider myself an expert on wild animals, but I have been diving for a while and no matter how long you spend underwater or on the water, every day can bring something new to look at. We had a very interesting experience on Saturday 14 September at one of our local dive sites. The Clan Stuart, an inshore wreck in 10 metres of water about 100 metres offshore, can be dived as a shore entry as well as a boat dive. Our group were all very experienced and mostly in their forties and fifties. Diving the wreck from the beach requires a challenging climb over the train tracks as well as a rock embankment plus a trip through the shore break. It is not for everyone, so we offer this site as a boat dive.

I took this photo of the Clan Stuart engine block while the divers were kitting up on the boat

The conditions were good. The water temperature was 15 degrees, visibility 6-8 metres and there was a manageable 2-3 metre swell (it wouldn’t have been manageable if we’d done it as a shore entry). The divers rolled into the water and head over the stern of the wreck. From our boat you dive with a buoy and a reel or you stay at home. There is far too much boat traffic in Cape Town to dive any other way. I always stay very close to the the divers in the first few minutes to ensure I can attend to problems quickly.

Five to seven minutes into the dive the buoy turned sharply and headed for shore at quite a pace. I moved in a little closer and a white shark surfaced perhaps 10 metres in front of the boat and about 10 metres behind the divers. It then disappeared briefly and came back heading for the divers. I started to head towards the shark to get between it and the divers, but it swam straight for them and simply swam through the group.

It then turned and came towards the boat and surfaced again, and I tossed a weight at it, not really knowing if it would help. The shark went below the boat and I never saw it again. By this time the group had reached the shallows and two of the group, Christo and Craig, were busy getting the others out of the water. I then went back to the jetty, left the boat there and drove to pick them up assisted by Clare as we were not getting six divers with kit into either of our cars.

As with any such interesting experience there are always a lot of helpful and insightful questions, comments and observations.

The first question posed to me was from the Divemaster, Craig. Did they do the right thing? Most definitely. I think he and Christo made an excellent decision in a very stressful situation. In our briefings I always touch lightly on the recommended course of action if you see a shark or any other large wild animal, and between Christo and Craig, both regular divers on our boat, they followed that plan to the letter. I tell the divers to get into a small group, stay close together, and – if possible – stay on the sea floor. They must wait until the shark has moved away before attempting to swim off in a calm manner. On no account should they surface while the shark is still in the area.

Interestingly, everyone agreed that the shark’s size was between 3-4 metres, and that it was very inquisitive but not overly aggressive. The shark had a fair amount of time to display any aggression as the swim from the wreck to the beach can take several minutes and in fact took a fair while as Christo and Craig kept the group tightly together despite the inclination from one diver to wander off. I asked if anyone had noticed if it was a male or female as I know our resident scientist and shark expert would like that info, and got this response from Christo: “It swam straight at me, I could see both its eyes, and when it was less than two metres away it turned so suddenly that I felt the wash from its tail.”

This comment from Christo impressed me the most. “I have had no interest in seeing a white shark underwater but having seen one I can understand why people find them to be beautiful and graceful.”

A Day on the Bay: Octopus fishing and herons

Date: 15 April 2013

Heron in the Simon's Town yacht basin — Heron in the Simon’s Town yacht basin

You see something new on the ocean every day. This handsome grey heron was standing around on the floating barrier in the Simon’s Town yacht basin when we left from FBYC to head out for a day of diving. We see herons quite often actually (there’s one that likes to hang out at A Frame, for example), but it’s not every day that you see a dive site marked with an inflated BCD instead of a nice big orange buoy. This photo was taken while some divers were down on the wreck of the SAS Pietermaritzburg.

An inflated BCD, used as a buoy marking a dive site

We motored on past this peculiar (and slightly unsafe – a fast moving boat wouldn’t easily spot this marker on the surface) arrangement to Shark Alley, where we planned to spend some time with the broadnose sevengill cowsharks. Once there, the divers got themselves ready…

… and executed a perfectly synchronised backward roll into the water! The surface conditions were beautiful and the boat hardly drifted for the duration of the dive. We did a double tank dive (you can just see the spare cylinders on the tank rack in the picture below), and went straight on to Photographer’s Reef afterwards for a second dive.

On our way back we passed by the experimental octopus fishing gear, comprising hundreds of traps strung on long (one kilometre) lines between Simon’s Town and Fish Hoek. This is an intitiative by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, and is a cause of great concern to me (not least because DAFF is rife with ignorance, corruption and mismanagement). The risk of entanglement to marine creatures is, I think, significant. It is also not clear whether an impact study has been done regarding the effects of removing hundreds of octopus from the bay every few months.

You can see that the fishing gear is marked with a small flashing strobe that is visible in the evenings from the Whale Lookout in Glencairn. It is also inscribed with various threats against anyone who disturbs it.

When we returned to the yacht club, there was a heron waiting at the bottom of the slipway in the shallow water. We gave him time to get out of the way!

Newsletter: Boat racing

Hi divers

The weather has not been too kind this week if you are a diver. For anything else the mild winds, sunny days and pleasant evenings have made for a nice week. Ocean wise, not so much. Last weekend was blown out completely and despite the shoddy weather the divers that did head out on a boat from Hout Bay returned very quickly. Monday was flat calm and pleasant but the viz was not great. We did a seal trip to Duiker Island and the viz was 6 – 8 metres, and the water was cold.

During the week we have been in False Bay with some places having 2 metre visibility (Photographer’s Reef) and others 6 metres. Long beach today was 3-4. The navy were doing training and there were boats buzzing over us all through the dive and lots of armed soldiers running around on the beach and on and off the boats. They were still busy after seven o’clock this evening. Diving at Long Beach without a buoy is a risky pastime.

The weekend

The wind tomorrow will have some effect on False Bay and might clean it up a little but there will still be a 4 metre swell cruising into the Bay. The swell is more southerly than westerly so I think its going to be a hard call.

It’s the Argus Cycle Tour this Sunday so we will be totally boxed in, here in the deep south, and won’t leave home at all. My feeling is that it’ll be a dry weekend once again.

Training

I have both SDI and Padi Open Water students diving, a Rescue and a Divemaster course so it’s been good being busy. However I did have an engine failure on the port motor of Seahorse that is going to take a while to fix. The boat dives we plan will then be on one of the other charter boats for a few weeks.

Travel

Don’t forget our Durban trip from 14-18 June – contact me if you’re interested. Clare and I are going to the Red Sea in October (dates to be finalised in the next few weeks) and wouldn’t mind some familiar faces on the boat. If you want more information on that trip, let me know as well.

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/

Diving is addictive!

Dive sites: Steenbras Deep

On Sunday 11 March, since the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour was going to prohibit access to basically the entire peninsula, we decided to take an expedition out to the eastern side of False Bay to do a boat dive with Indigo Scuba, run by Kate and Deon Jonker. We’ve been meaning to do this for ages and ages, so we were very glad to finally get ourselves over there! The southeaster (which had blown strongly in the few days prior to the 11th) actually cleans up the eastern side of False Bay while it messes up the western side, or at least has some positive effect on visibility. So while we are diving in the Atlantic during the summer, Indigo launches out of Gordon’s Bay and explores local dive sites such as Pinnacles, Cow and Calf, and the Steenbras River Mouth.

Deon Jonker skippering the Indigo Scuba dive boat

We met at Indigo Scuba in the morning, loaded up the boat, and then drove the 5 minutes to Harbour Island in Gordon’s Bay, from where we launched. It’s an extremely civilised launch site and overall experience… The foul-mouthed snoek slinging fishermen crowding Miller’s Point seemed like a bad dream!

It’s about 11 kilometres from Harbour Island to Steenbras Deep, and one has the feeling of being quite far out to sea – although we could see the mountains surrounding False Bay on both sides of us. The wind was stronger than the weather man had predicted, giving rise to some quite serious wind chop and a bumpy and wet boat ride. When we arrived at the reef we could see that there was more wave action on top of the pinnacles than in the deeper water surrounding them. Deon dropped a shot on one of the two pinnacles that comprise the reef (the top of the pinnacle we dropped onto is at about 18 metres, with the sand at about 30 metres). A murky descent (standard for False Bay in summer!) down the shot line led us to the top of the pinnacle, where visibility was only about 2 metres and it was very green.

As we ventured slightly deeper we encountered some invigorating (ahem!) thermoclines (one of them was actually visible as a haze in the water) and improved visibility. There was quite a strong current in places, and lots of surge.

There are many similarities between the reefs we dive on the western side of False Bay, but the overall pattern of the sea life was subtly different. The fish seemed far less skittish than their compatriots to the west, and happily swam within a few tens of centimetres from my mask. Nudibranchs abound, and close inspection of the corals covering the rocks is well rewarded. There seemed to be fewer sea cucumbers, and feather stars were not quite as dominant as they are in some of the other parts of False Bay. The corals, sponges and sea fans are beautiful and very numerous.

The sand around the reef is very coarse and full of shells, and the reef itself abounds with cracks, gullies, small pointy pinnacles, and walls that can be traversed at a variety of depths. The gullies appear to be much beloved by west coast rock lobster, and shysharks were quite common too.

Puffadder shyshark and some lobster friends

This reef is not in a marine protected area (MPA) – none of the eastern False Bay dive sites are. Kate, who regularly dives both sides of the bay, says she can see a distinct difference in the number of fish that they see on “their” side of the bay compared to the western side. So even if I am quite cynical about the competence of the administration and will to police the MPAs, clearly they are having some effect!

Dive date: 11 March 2012

Air temperature: 29 degrees

Water temperature: 12 degrees

Maximum depth: 24.8 metres

Visibility: 2-10 metres

Dive duration: 38 minutes

Diving with an alpha flag

The vast majority of new divers in Cape Town know where Long Beach in Simon’s Town is. Irrespective of the dive school you choose for Open Water training it is in most cases quite likely you will do at least one dive at Long Beach. There is a very good reason for this: it is diveable in most conditions as is usually the last place on the coastline to be blown out. It is a safe environment and a perfect place for training as it is by far one of the easiest shore entries around.

Divers enter the water as a rubberduck speeds past

Although it is known to all dive trainers as a training site, very few visitors know this and not all water users (boaters, kayakers and paddle-skiers) are aware of your presence in the water. The average boater does not know the tell-tale signs of bubbles divers make, and why should he? But being struck by a paddle-ski, a propeller, or the keel of a sailboat is going to hurt you and it could easily kill you.

It is not too often that boats buzz by the beach, but on occasion the Navy boats as well as paddlers, and fishermen drive by as well as visitors to the coast with their recreational boats. Even the NSRI uses this beach for training of their boat crews on occasion. Part of a skipper’s training is to be aware of things floating on the surface: buoys could indicate nets, for example, that would snag the propeller, and thus boaters are trained to avoid or approach carefully any such flotation device.

There is no evidence of a surface marker buoy

So why do most divers dive without any form of warning to a boat that they are there, and why would they do so when part of what they are teaching new divers involves ascending in random spots all over the area? “We seldom ascend during a dive” is most often the answer as to why yet there are several surface skills, training ascents and the constant risk of an unplanned ascent by a new diver coming to terms with buoyancy (or in some cases having a mild panic attack and dashing to the surface).

The simple answer is that it is not required by law in South Africa to tow a buoy or alpha flag… But then it’s not law that as an Open Water diver you can’t go to 50 metres during a dive. You are taught not to exceed your training level, your logic will also most likely tell you it’s a risky plan, but if you are foolish enough to try who would stop you?

More divers entering the water without a buoy or flag

It is fortunate that the dive industry is largely self-regulated and as divers we are free to explore the ocean at will. Scuba diving is a very safe sport and provided you stay within the guidelines of you training agency you will have thousands of safe and enjoyable dives. When doing a boat dive, the skipper will typically erect an Alpha flag to indicate to other boats that he has divers in the water (if your skipper doesn’t do this, it’s time to switch dive charters to one that’s more safety conscious).

You could dive without a pressure gauge – but that would be foolish – you could dive without a mask, but then you would see very little, and you could also dive without an alpha flag, but none of the surface water users would see you or know you were there. Would that not be foolish?

Dogs of Long Beach: Scuba pooch

A bird? A plane? No, it's... Scuba Pooch! — A bird? A plane? No, it’s… Scuba Pooch!

Returning to shore after a successful dive

This gorgeous dog visited us out in the water one day at Long Beach, on a day when the water was clean green. He swam out to us on the surface, inspected all of us thoroughly, and when he was finished, returned to shore.

Lomography: Dive buddies

My camera housing has a large mechanical shutter release button, and when I don’t turn it off after a dive it sometimes bumps against my leg as I walk up the beach. The resulting accidental photographs, while neither beautiful nor perfectly composed, have a particular charm. While I can’t conceive of purposely taking a bad photo (you can always make it look bad afterwards in Photoshop!), when I look at these photographs I can almost see the appeal that lomography has among the trendy hipster set (of which I am emphatically not a member).

Here are some of my favourite pictures of my dive buddies:

Tony disentangling his camera gear at Long Beach

The fair Kate spent two months with us doing a Zero to Hero course (Open Water to Divemaster). She spent a lot of time towing the buoy around!

Kate walking up the beach behind me with the buoy

Kate and I took Jeremy, a Canadian visitor, for a dive one November day. We saw beautiful schools of strepies on that dive. You can see my face at the top right of this photo, looking down at the camera. I was probably about to unclip it from my BCD.

Finally, here are some student photos…

This could actually be Kate!

Dive sites (Sodwana): Four Buoy

Dive date: 18 April 2011

Air temperature: 22 degrees

Water temperature: 24 degrees

Maximum depth: 16.0 metres

Visibility: 10 metres

Dive duration: 59 minutes

Dive on the MV Romelia (2010.12.19)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-XWVdUaD8I&w=540]

We dived on the Romelia late last year, in very surgy conditions. It wasn’t ideal for videography – you can see the movement of the water, and also that there was a large amount of plankton and also many juvenile fish or larvae from other creatures in the water. Some of the red seaweed looks like it’s blowing in a strong wind!

The wreck is very broken up and covered with urchins and the most enormous and colourful sea anemones. There are lots of boulders with narrow gaps between, fun to swim through. A couple of sea jellies pass by and once we ascended into the red bait zone you can see some curious hottentots passing by. There’s also a very large, four-legged sea star that caught my attention.

Look out for Clare and Cecil in the water, and Grant (in a bright orange jacket), Mauro (in the sunhat), Richard (in his rash vest, looking a bit like Jacques Cousteau) and Belinda (in the background) on the boat once we surface, right on the buoy line.