Cephalopods – Page 8 – Learn to Dive Today Blog

Newsletter: 50 metres and Gordon’s Bay

Hello all you divers

Tracy, Goot, Sophie, me, Tami, Bernita, Clare and Cecil outside the chamber

We have just come home from a 50 metre chamber dive. We were two groups of four on each dive and the profile went like this: surface to a brief stop at 9 metres to check that everyone was okay and then a plunge down to 50 metres in two minutes, ten minutes at this depth and then around 25 minutes for the ascent with a few stops to decompress.

We took a small sample of a wetsuit with us, this compressed to paper thin material. Two balloons, inflated before the descent, shrank to the size of a fist at 50 metres. We took several dive computers and a wrist mount depth gauge. The computers agreed more or less on the depth we reached, 50.2, 50.4 and 50.1 metres. The analogue depth gauge showed almost 60 metres. Great fun and a safe way to experience chronic nitrogen narcosis.

Clare examining the controls of the chamber

Last week

We had three good days of diving last week and saw a huge ray, several cuttlefish, puffer fish, and of course the regular octopus. There have also been huge schools of yellowtail, the fishermen were netting a few hundred an hour on the northern end of Long Beach. All the dives last week were interesting as a big school of tiny anchovies followed us around.

We dived at Long Beach on the weekend, Corne doing Divemaster training, Marinus and Dean doing dive three and compass work for their Open Water course, and Sarah finishing her Open Water course.

Dean practising compass work under a towel while Marinus and Corne look on

The water was 15 degrees and the visibility was low, perhaps 3-4 metres. We were able to capture a small feeding frenzy on camera below the bow of the wreck where a few species were after the same food, the winner being the shyshark who took it all in one bite. I’ll send a link to the video in the next newsletter.

Sunday’s planned boat dives were cancelled due to a red tide hitting the coastline and turning the water into coffee. Clare, Lukas and I did a photography dive to check it out and had less than 2 metres visibility.

This weekend

This weekend will be a little tricky. The Argus Cycle Tour is on and its around the peninsula so there are going to be road closures on Saturday evening and Sunday. Saturday they are closing the road late so we may be able to dive from Hout Bay but will only know on Thursday if this is going to happen.

Sunday is definitely out so we are planning to head off to Gordon’s Bay, weather permitting. The plan is for Grant to take the boat out really early, check out the conditions and then give us a call. You will need to either escape the race, participate, or stay home so why not come to Gordon’s Bay and we go wreck hunting. The diving there is lovely and conditions are good there when our side of False Bay is a mess because of the southeaster. We’re going to make a day of it and have lunch and an ice cream afterwards.

If you want to come diving on Sunday please let me know before midday on Friday because the boat will fill up very quickly with NON-cyclists!

Sodwana

Sodwana divers please send me a list of gear you will require so we can get it planned and arranged. We will have a dinner at our house for the group about 10 days before we leave to get all the final arrangements sorted out. I will let you know amounts owing in a separate mail.

Courses

I am currently running Open Water courses, Deep specialty, Rescue and Divemaster. The Deep specialty qualifies you to 40 metres so if proper exploration of those wrecks in Smitswinkel Bay is on your bucket list let me know and we can do some deep diving.

I am going to run two special programs over the next month, one being a package of Open Water, Advanced and a Specialty – e.g. Wreck, Deep or Nitrox – at a half price. Secondly do Discover Scuba Diving any weekday for R350 and if it is for a friend of yours you can tag along for free.

regards

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

Diving is addictive!

Dive sites: North Paw (Northern Pinnacle)

Tony has dived North Paw before (while I sat, sick with jealousy, in front of an Excel spreadsheet at work). This time I went with him and some students, and we were to explore an unmapped pinnacle to the north of the site, which seems to be quite extensive. It rises to within 10-12 metres of the surface, and doesn’t actually have a name yet…

Grant’s best suggestion (which some on the boat were keen to override) is “Bokkie’s Rump” – the idea being that the lion (Lion’s head) has its two paws (North Lion’s Paw and South Lion’s Paw) resting on a little springbok that he’s caught. The bokkie’s rump (ahem) sticks out beyond the northern paw.

DC relaxing with North Paw rocks in the background and Grant's boat approaching

Grant put the shot on top of the pinnacle, which according to Peter Southwood, is about 8 by 10 metres. We descended next to it – a lovely sheer wall – down to the sand at about 20 metres. There are rock lobsters galore, and rich invertebrate life.

Georgina pointed out a large cuttlefish, well camouflaged on the reef. When he moved, he changed colour to match his new background. Tony also found four tiny cuttlefish – fingernail-sized – lined up as if for a race. When he turned to call me with the camera, they scattered, invisibly, on the sand.

I found a few different nudibranchs – black, gas flame and crowned – and Tony also found one for me, much to his delight. He claims to have been having a “nudibranch drought” lately!

The site is rocky with lots of crevices for rock lobster to hide in. We saw some large ones, but, Gerard assured me, no HUGE ones. He should know! We were highly amused to see one big guy eating a sea jelly – the ocean floor was littered with a few dead (or incapacitated) ones, and apparently rock lobsters enjoy that kind of treat. I also saw a large rock lobster carefully carrying a cluster of mussels!

Hungry rock lobster eating a night light sea jelly

At the safety stop I saw no fewer than four different kinds of sea jelly – the largest being a night light sea jelly that was almost as long as Tony, with a huge purple bell. He obligingly swam behind it to give some perspective to the photo but I carried on photographing the jelly as it swam off into the distance.

Gerard had gotten low on air earlier, and returned to the boat… While he was waiting for a pick-up, something bumped his leg hard, and he was convinced it was a shark. Instead, it was one of the friendly seals that had visited us during our dive. His comments on the subject are unprintable – suffice it to say he got a bit of a fright!

When the rest of us surfaced we got to chill for a while, looking at the magnificent scenery, because we’d come quite far from the original pinnacle. We had drifted with the current, roughly towards the Atlantic seaboard. It must be – as I announced when the boat arrived – the most beautiful place in the world to surface. The diving’s pretty good too!

Dive date: 20 February 2011

Air temperature: 27 degrees

Water temperature: 8 degrees

Maximum depth: 23.6 metres

Visibility: 10 metres

Dive duration: 36 minutes

Newsletter: Deep dives, Sodwana, and octopus don’t eat sweets

Hi everyone

Weekend diving

The weekend was not ideally suited to diving and Saturday was too windy for diving. Sunday saw a strong southeaster which dictated the only option for diving, OPBC.

Close to the V&A Waterfront, the boats launched from there and we went to explore a pinnacle close to North Paw. Almost directly in front of Lions Head there is a North and a South Paw, rocky ridges that resemble the lion’s paws.

Maximum depth was 25 metres, visibility around 10 metres and chilly water, 8-9 degrees celcius at the bottom. It is a newish dive site so we were lucky to find all sorts of creatures that had never seen divers before. It also looked like lobster country with hundreds of them, all different sizes, all over the place.

Fun with octopus

On Tuesday last week I spent 30 minutes with a video camera and an octopus. I had previously seen this same octopus become very excited at the sight of my brightly coloured weights some time ago. We were doing a peak performance buoyancy dive and when the students placed the coloured weights on the sand near the octopus it became very animated. I spent some time with this octopus last week and gave him some liquorice allsorts to play with. After tasting them all one by one they were spat out. Most entertaining. Watch the video here.

Night light sea jelly with Tony in the background

Deep Specialty

This weekend we start a Deep specialty course. As a deep diver you are qualified to dive to 40 metres, this makes many of Cape Town’s wrecks accessible for exploration (including those in Smitswinkel Bay, most of which are deeper than 30 metres on the sand). Experience an emergency decompression stop, navigation at depth and breathing from a hang tank. You will learn more about nitrogen narcosis, how to plan a dive using a dive computer and the use of dive computers. Drift diving and wall diving will also be experienced during this course. You will also learn proper deployment of an SMB. If you’re interested or want to discuss this course with me, drop me an email.

Cecil checking his computer at a safety stop

Congratulations to…

The following students have attained their qualifications since 1 January – welcome to the world of diving!

Open Water -Arieh, Michelle, Andrew, Lukas, Jamie-Lee, Danelene, DC, Sarah (all grown up)

Junior Open Water – Shira, Josh (nearly grown up, 10-15 years old)

Seal Team – Abby (9 years old)

Advanced – Oscar, Mark, DC, Cecil

Nitrox – Cecil

Tony, Cecil and SMB on the surface after the North Paw dive

Plans

Wednesday and Thursday I am doing some Rescue training and an EFR course, a prerequisite for Rescue.

We will be finalising the arrangements for the chamber dive this week, and I will contact those of you who have expressed an interest in a separate mail. If you’d like to take part and haven’t let me know yet, or want to know more about it, please email me.

I’ll also be in touch about Sodwana (16-20 April). If you’re still on the fence or still need to pay your deposits, get moving and confirm whether you’re in or out.

And finally, permits – if you don’t have one, go to the post office NOW and get one!

regards

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

Diving is addictive!

Octopus do not eat sweets

I am one of those people that believe interaction with marine creatures can be entertaining, educational and an amazing experience. Hurting, harming or gross interference on the other hand is not acceptable and there is a constant debate on the “touch or don’t touch” topic. I often spend several hours a day submerged in a world filled with the most amazing creatures and often find interaction with them irresistible.

A few weeks back, whilst conducting a peak performance buoyancy dive, my student had removed a few weights from the BCD pockets and placed them on the sand. At the time we were close to an octopus home and I watched with amazement as the octopus and several klipfish become interested in the different colours of the weights.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFMOo5BTxGY&w=540]

I decided to go back when I had time and on Tuesday, after the student dives were over, I went to visit this octopus armed with my camera and some brightly coloured sweets. I set the camera up close to the octopus, hit the “record” button and dropped a few sweets near his home.

I spent 30 minutes there mesmerised by the behavior of the octopus, klipfish and barehead gobies. From this video clip I can say with certainty, octopus don’t eat sweets… They taste them and then spit them out. You can be sure I will be back there soon with something more palatable to an octopus!

Odd couples

Sometimes one comes across an unlikely pair of sea creatures in combat, conference or just comfortable coexistence. I love finding and photographing these moments. Here are some of my favourites, all taken in Cape Town (and most of them at Long Beach).

This klipfish has his ANGRY FACE on and is trying his best to look large and scary by raising his dorsal fin. The octopus is only mildly concerned. If I had to back anyone in a fight, it would be the octopus.

Stand-off between a klipfish and an octopus

At this time of year there are a lot of very small klipfish around, and they are generally quite skittish. I was very amused to see this one using a starfish as cover – his body is about the same length as one of the starfish’s legs!

Under the jetty in Simon’s Town Harbour we found some sea anemones so large that I’m convinced they’ve been there since 1950. On one of them a Cape rock crab was sitting in considerable comfort. The picture isn’t great – lots of surge under there – but you get the idea!

Sea life: Cuttlefish

I love cuttlefish – they are cephalopods like octopus, and endlessly beautiful and entertaining to watch. Cephalopod means head-foot in Greek, and refers to their structure: large head, plus lots of tentacles.

We’ve spotted cuttlefish on a night dive before, vibrating its orange mantle underneath one of the Long Beach wrecks. Tony put up a video clip here.

The cutest thing I have EVER seen in the ocean was a toenail-sized cuttlefish I met while photographing Tony and Kate assembling the artificial reef at Long Beach. I was meant to be taking pictures of their work, but my eye was caught by this little dude moving across the sand. I first thought he was a warty pleurobranch, but he put on a burst of speed beyond the capabilities of any flavour of sea slug.

I followed him around for some time, watching as he changed colour to try and intimidate me, and then as he gave up and went about his business.

If I could have taken him home as a pet, I would have. Here’s a picture of him next to my finger (in my new gloves) for scale.

Clare's finger next to a tiny cuttlefish

On the Atlantic side, Oscar located a large specimen for me on the wreck of the SS Maori near Hout Bay. He was quite happily nestled against a rock, and was undisturbed by me coming quite close to check him out. He was a beautiful, large fellow.

Watching a cuttlefish on the move is wonderful – their mantles (the frilly bit around their bodies) make hypnotic waves as they undulate through the water. They can be quite relaxed, and will allow divers to come close to them as they hover in the water column.

Underwater Alphabet Part 3

The third part of my nephew’s underwater alphabet… Here’s part one and here’s part two.

O is for octopus

P is for pufferfish

Q is for quay

R is for ray

S is for starfish

T is for turtle

Newsletter: Diving and travelling

Hello everyone

I am sure you have all enjoyed a vacation and are dying to get back to work… Hehehehe!

Permits

Every diver must have a diving permit. For those that don’t, please rush off to the post office armed with you ID book and get one for the princely sum of R94. Keep it handy, it is meant to be ”on the boat” with you. At some point you will be asked to produce it and failure to do so could result in anything from a fine to the donating of your scuba gear to the government… Jokes aside, its law, so get one. Almost every dive site in south Africa falls in a Marine Protected Area and these are the people who are meant to protect these areas from harm… They need your money.

Recent dives

December has come and gone, the sun has been warming the ocean and we have 18 -19 deg at the moment. Sadly warm water often means less visibility, but the dives we have done have still been fun.

We saw two tiny devil rays at Long Beach just off the concrete wreck near the harbour buoy, a massive short tailed sting ray and a few small playful seals.

On Sunday, in 3 – 4 m visibility Clare took these pictures of a klipfish and an octopus having a disagreement, two students with good buoyancy on their first sea dive and…

Open Water students on their first sea dive

… these two orange clubbed nudibranchs were on the kelp near the wooden dinghy wreck at Long Beach.

Orange clubbed nudibranchs at Long Beach

Sodwana

I have attached the details and costs of the planned trip to Sodwana. This picture shows a few divers from the last trip doing a navigation swim in 25 m visibility. Did I mention the water temperature was 24 degrees celcius? and will be 25 degrees in April. If you are keen let me know, we do not have to pay anything until middle of February, so stop, think, and book…

Low Season Prices 2011

Boat dives

I am hoping to get us all out on the boat this weekend. I have a few Advanced students needing to do their deep dive as well as Nitrox students. Just remember, if you book a boat dive and cancel less than 24 hours before the launch, I get billed (and hence, so do you).

See you in the water soon!

regards

Tony Lindeque
076 817 1099
www.learntodivetoday.co.za
www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog
Diving is addictive!

<strong><a href=”https://www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/small-colour-e1284626229322.jpg”><img class=”alignleft size-full wp-image-486″ title=”Learn to Dive Today logo” src=”https://www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/small-colour-e1284626229322.jpg” alt=”Learn to Dive Today logo” width=”73″ height=”67″ /></a>Tony Lindeque</strong>
076 817 1099
<a href=”http://www.learntodivetoday.co.za” target=”_blank”>www.learntodivetoday.co.za</a>
<a href=”https://www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog” target=”_self”>www.learntodivetoday.co.za/blog</a>
<em>Diving is addictive!</em>

My fascination with the ocean

This information could possibly used to certify me insane, but I will risk it.

Very little research has been done about this but I (as have many others) have always believed that different creatures begin to warm to divers. There are many stories of specific ocean creatures being named, recognised and often visited by many divers.

Octopus

Several octopus at Long Beach for example live in holes on the pipeline and no matter what if you go by in the day they will be there.

Often, on night dives,there is no one home as they are off feeding, probably close by, but due to the darkness we don’t see them. This is how they move around at night.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAL6Nld69vI&w=540]

Brindle and potato bass

Sodwana Bay had a brindle bass, seen by many divers year after year at the same dive site. This huge creature was very friendly and enjoyed interacting with divers. Many creatures in the ocean are fiercely territorial and once you have found them and discovered their territory it is easy to spot them as they seldom go far.

Whilst working in Mozambique I too visited the same reef sometimes four or five times a day on a busy weekend, showing different groups of divers the same ”locals” on the reef.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vyq6qcByx6A&w=540]

This video shows a huge potato bass that I believed was always waiting for us to drop in. This potato bass is easily recognizable by the fact that she has only one eye. You could not just swim past without giving her a tickle as doing so would result in her following the group all down the reef. Ascending to the safety stop you would see her race back to the start of the reef where she knew the next group would be dropped.

I am convinced of this as on the odd occasion that the weather would present us with a reverse current, we would drop down on the opposite end of the reef and there she would be.

Moray eels

“They bite” is what any diver will tell you. Well they do, however I believe this particular black cheeked eel warmed to me. I visited her every day for about six months. The first few weeks I just looked, then the next few weeks I offered my hand, it got bitten, severely several times and the resulting injuries required a few weeks of looking only. From this video clip, heavily edited, its clear the aggression shown in the first few weeks waned, became less severe, and eventually slowed right down to a nibble without breaking the skin… Was she warming, becoming more friendly or just getting so tired of my annoying hand in her face that she didn’t want to bother? You decide.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ti4xoPWSztU&w=540]

A rather large honeycomb moray also fond of a chin tickle:

Peanut & Butter

The reason for the preceding information is to justify my fondness for two little fellas I met at Long Beach while Kate was doing her Zero to Hero course. They are called Peanut (a juvenile double sash butterflyfish) and Butter (a juvenile jutjaw).

Peanut the double sash butterflyfish — Peanut the double sash butteflyfish

I first spotted them a couple of months back and every time I go by on a dive I take a peek to see if they are still there. Being as small as they are there is a real risk they may end up as lunch for someone, but for now we will monitor their progress and watch them grow.

Dive sites: North Lion’s Paw

On Thursday seven of us decided to do a fun dive from the boat. We dived at a site called North Paw. It’s a short boat ride from the Oceana Powerboat Club launch site close to Camps Bay and Clifton, and despite the howling south easter the site is sheltered. The sea was calm, very little current or surge and the visibility was amazing, 15 – 20 metres. The outstanding visibility always has a catch: the water was cold. At 25 metres the temperature was 4 degrees celsius.

The skipper had mentioned this dive site was anchor paradise and so it seemed, I saw 3 anchors lost at sea. Cecil decided to take one home so he followed the trailing rope, lifted the anchor and discovered just how heavy it was. We attached Bernita’s SMB to the anchor and sent it to the surface.

Cecil's anchor on the way up — Cecil’s anchor on the way up

I was really happy to find a juvenile manefish (Caristius groenlandicus), not much bigger than a five rand coin. Initially I was really excited believing it was a batfish, but the books proved me wrong and a manefish it is.

On the way back to the slipway, we saw a seal beating a large octopus to death on the surface of the water. After it had finished eating its tasty snack (one tentacle at a time), it delicately wiped its mouth with its flippers.