Everything ocean related, with a special focus on scuba diving the rich coastal waters of Cape Town, South Africa.
Here’s a properly edited summary of our dive last Sunday at Shark Alley. Notice how leisurely the cowsharks are, and then how the action speeds up towards the end of the clip while we were being harrassed by that female who wanted a piece of Clare’s (and others’) kit.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWGiNZprqfg&w=540]
We have an astonishing array of shark species in the Cape oceans, offering wonderful opportunities to divers. At one end of the spectrum is shark cage diving at Seal Island or in Gansbaai, and at the other, I think, is the humble shyshark.
Shysharks are small, ranging from 15 centimetre juveniles up to about 75 centimetres when fully grown. They look like small sharks – they ARE small sharks – and come in a range of hues.
Puffadder shysharks are the most common, with brown and yellow mottled markings, saddles across its body, and white spots. My favourite, however, are the dark shysharks – sometimes they look like black velvet with glowing white spots on their backs.
Shysharks are not really shy – in fact we often encounter really docile (sleepy?) ones that let us give them a tickle or get really close for a photo. The smaller ones are generally more jumpy, but when they feel threatened they curl up in a little bagel-shaped ring with its tail covering its eyes. This is possibly to make them more difficult for a predator to swallow. They are preyed upon by larger shark species such as sevengill cowsharks, as well as (occasionally) seals.
Their skin is rough, like all sharks’, and has a tendency to stick to neoprene if you get too close. So be warned! They eat worms, crustaceans, and smaller fish. They are oviparous, the females producing egg capsules that we called “mermaids’ purses” when we found them on the beach as children. Breeding takes place all year round.
These little sharks are completely harmless to humans, and their gentle and docile nature means that great pleasure can be derived from watching them up close. Their eyes are very beautiful, and coming across one resting on the sand will give you a good opportunity to study their intricate markings.
A couple of weeks ago we found a shyshark at Long Beach with a copepod parasite sticking out of one of its gill covers. According to Guido at SURG, sightings like this are relatively uncommon.
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.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-vP7W5TEBk&w=540]
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.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiZs3YOG1-c&w=540]
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.
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!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoiQSWdaSnU&w=540]
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.
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.
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.
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.
[youtube=http://il.youtube.com/watch?v=aIKU_peK7Fs&w=540]
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.
There are a couple of different species of catshark found in Cape Town waters. These sharks grow up to 1 metre long, and if seen during the day they are generally sleeping. They have small barbels on their faces.
The leopard catshark has intricate dark markings on its back, on a white or blue background. It’s colouration is apparently highly variable – I’ve only seen this beautiful white specimen on the SAS Pietermaritzburg.
The pyjama shark or striped catshark is mostly nocturnal, and spends its days sleeping. They have attractive blue stripes and really do look as though they’re wearing PJs made of ticking. Like shysharks, pyjama sharks may curl into a ball when threatened.
Tony found these sleepy specimens piled on top of one another inside the pipeline at Long Beach one day. We have seen them swimming around at night.
These sharks are considered “near threatened” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), because it is fairly localised in distribution and often appears in bycatches.
Both these species of catshark are slow-swimming, opportunistic feeders, eating squid, octopus, other small fishes, and invertebrates.
(Forgive the overly dramatic headline… It’s worthy of a B Grade horror movie!)
Tony has described our encounter with a very confident female sevengill cowshark last weekend. I don’t remember it too clearly – I was very stressed – but watching the camera footage from the incident brought some of it back. Tony’s camera was on the whole time, but he (obviously, and thankfully) was not too concerned with getting good footage. He was more interested in making sure the shark didn’t munch my kit!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5bNezwfFCc&w=540]
What I do remember is sitting on the sand, with Tami and Kate to my right and slightly behind me, and Tony a short distance away also to the right. The shark swam very close to me – so close that I wrapped my arms around my body and pulled my hoses and camera against myself. I don’t think she touched me at this point, but there were only centimetres between us. As she passed me I turned with her to check that Kate was all right (it was her first sevengill dive). The shark then went behind me, and while I could not feel anything, I was aware that she was right in my personal space and had her mouth on some part of my kit.
At that point I buried myself face down in the gravel (so did Kate), and Tami gave the shark a few (her words) “girly slaps” to try and deter it. I remember making some undignified whimpering noises. Tony then swam over and delivered some justice.
It’s hard to tell who’s who in the video, but I have a black mask, my BCD says SEAC on it, and Kate is in a grey wetsuit. Tami’s mask is bright pink and she’s wearing a ScubaPro BCD.
What you can see from the footage is how many times the shark came back – it was persistent, even after Tony had whacked it on the head with his camera – and the large, stressed bubble clouds coming from me, Kate and Tami who were all close together when the shark decided to investigate my pillar valve. None of us had a lot of air left when we reached the shore… My heart was still racing hours afterwards.
Accounts by surfers who have had trouble with sharks often involve punching the shark on the nose… This female had to be smacked a few times before she got the message – it’s clearly not the cure-all that it’s billed as. However, Tony was avoiding hitting the shark on the tip of her nose, which is supposed to be extremely sensitive, so as not to hurt her. Trust him to be concerned for the shark’s wellfare while it was harrassing us! He said the shark felt VERY solid.
An image that is stuck in my mind from the dive is the cowshark, perhaps a metre and a half away from Tony, with her tail whipping in the water column and her (usually smiling) jaws snapping like Elmo from Sesame Street. Only more scary.
Gordon, a visitor from the UK who was the fifth member of our group (also on his first cowshark dive), told us that he’d been swimming at the back of the group, and that this shark had been tailing us for some 50 metres before she started making trouble. She’d eyed Kate’s fins, and then thought better of it (clearly Gordon’s stern gaze worked wonders)!
Cowsharks are generally confident and curious, but this is the first time we’ve experienced anything like this. The will swim close to divers – sometimes very close – but they’ve never initiated contact and in fact when Tony once brushed against one by accident it took off at speed in the opposite direction. I’m not sure what to make of this – just last week the Scuba Shack newsletter spoke of a cowshark that had investigated one of the divers’ pillar valves. Same shark?
On Saturday afternoon we dived at Shark Alley in front of Pyramid Rock, home to Cape Town’s broadnosed sevengill cowsharks. The visibility was not great, perhaps 4 metres, and there was a lot of cloud cover.
The entry is always a little tricky but if you go in on the sand and keep your footing it’s a breeze. About 6 – 7 minutes into the dive we saw our first shark and a few minutes later we were in the area known as Shark Alley.
Clare and I both had cameras and we were sitting on the sand when a frisky metre and a half female started to be a bit pushy. She nipped at Tami’s fins, and then bit me on the back of my head. I had a loose hoodie on the back of my wetsuit that possibly seemed edible but I felt the bump. Having just checked on the group behind me I knew it was not a kick from one of the divers.
As I turned to see what it was she came in really close to Clare, almost rubbing her sleek body against Clare. The shark did a quick turn and came right in between Clare and I and bit on Clare’s pillar valve. I pushed her away, concerned she would puncture a hose, and this did not make her happy. She did another tight turn and came straight at me snapping her jaws, and tried to taste my camera. She then came in again and needed a bump to turn her away. We quickly retreated and gave her some room but she slowly followed us for another 10 minutes, not keen to give up her game.
The behavior of this one shark seemed to excite several others and during this short period there were certainly many more sharks a lot closer whilst this was going on. I don’t think the shark was being aggressive, more likely playful or very inquisitive, but nonetheless a cause for some really heavy breathing and elevated heart rates among our small group of divers. Despite their seemingly placid and languid movements the sharks can and did become very excited, and moved very fast around us whilst staying close to us. This is just a reminder: they are high on the food chain and should not be underestimated.
Sharks, namely great white sharks, are an integral part of life in the ocean. As the apex predator they have a huge fan base as well as a large portion of the population that despise them. Great whites have made it onto the endangered species list and protection of these creatures is now widely accepted.
As a regular user of the ocean I have an interest in finding and photographing anything that moves in the ocean, and all life below the surface holds a measure of intrigue for me. Watching how these creatures big and small behave and interact in the ocean has a special place in my every day. From the smallest pipefish to a massive humpback whale, any sighting whilst on a dive is an amazing experience. As a regular ocean user, I also have a vested interest in shark movements.
No matter what you find in the ocean, a Google search will bring up heaps of information, photos and stories from any number of people, all willing to share the knowledge and information they have on the creatures they have experienced. Google ”research on pipefish” and there are thousands of articles, a massive amount of information and any number of publications.
Do such a search on great white sharks and the picture is very different. Sure, there is information out there and all of it interesting to read, but my concern is add “Cape Town” to your search and you come up almost empty handed.
There is a host of companies that make a living of these creatures by taking people to see them, dive with them and photograph them. All of these operators offer an amazing experience and for a fee share all of their knowledge and experience with you and ensure you have an experience of a lifetime. These operators are running a business, funded by their own efforts and dedication to doing what they love. With this I have no issue and in fact the vast majority of knowledge and available information on great white sharks around Cape Town comes from these people.
Cape Town has a host of research projects, funded by other people’s money, donations, and sponsors and yet much of the information gathered by these people is either not widely publicised or I just can’t find it. There is no end to the lists of ”projects” and pages of ”we plan to…” items on any number of websites but hardly a word of what they have done when or why.
We know great whites come closer to shore in summer, but do we know why? We know they have tracked great whites in the False Bay area for hours and hours and on a surf site there was a post regarding a great white tracked in False Bay for 24 hours, but so little real information.
So, where does one find the information? Any ideas?
Tami, Kate and I are busy with the PADI Wreck Specialty course. It involves four wreck dives, and a theory component. You don’t need to be an Advanced diver to do the course – though all three of us are – but an Adventure Diver qualification is sufficient.
(The Adventure Diver qualification is like Advanced-lite: instead of five adventure dives, you only do three. Also, you can credit each adventure dive towards the first dive of the corresponding specialty course.)
The theory component is simple: there’s a short (50 page) manual that covers safety aspects of wreck diving as well as some of the historical and (marine) biological considerations that should be borne in mind when exploring wrecks. I was particularly struck by the section pointing out that some wrecks are war graves or the final resting place (like Titanic) of many civilian souls, and should thus be treated with the same respect as you would a grave in a cemetery.
The manual is also very clear and forceful on the subject of wreck penetration, an activity that seems terrifying to me. You need the correct equipment, and (as Peter Southwood says repeatedly on his Wikivoyage pages) if you don’t know what that is, you’re not qualified to enter a wreck! Also, there are particular techniques required to handle that equipment: you need to know how to manage a reel, belaying it correctly, as well as how to handle yourself in case of entrapment, entanglement, or disorientation. Added to all this, many wrecks are unstable and all of them are in a state of decay… Locally, the SAS Transvaal, SAS Pietermaritzburg and BOS 400 come to mind (the latter collapsed during a storm this past winter, and is now in a radically different orientation).
Four wreck dives are required to complete the course. This past weekend we did two: a deep dive on the MV Rockeater, a fantastic former diamond driller in Smitswinkel Bay, and a dive on the SAS Pietermaritzburg.
The MV Rockeater is the oldest of the Smitswinkel Bay wrecks – it’s been down there since 1972. The ship has a lot of interesting bits and pieces sticking up off it, as well as a collapsed helicopter pad and a drilling derrick that is lying on the sand next to it. It’s 65 metres long and very, very lively. We saw a sleeping pyjama catshark in the wreck, as well as nudibranchs, lots of fish, and the most beautiful sea fans. Space cadet here didn’t lower her camera’s lens cover before putting it in the housing, and didn’t check that everything was in order with the camera while still on the boat… So at 20 metres when I switched it on, it told me to “lower the lens cover in order to shoot”… Opening the housing to do so was not an option! So I just had to look, no pictures.
Our project on this dive was to determine which way the current was flowing, and then swim from the shot line down the wreck into the current. We’d do this to 1/4 of our air, and then turn around and swim back with the current.
The SAS Pietermaritzburg is a more recent scuttling (1994) but lies in a very exposed spot just off the Miller’s Point slipway. It has a fascinating history – before being purchased and renamed by the South African government, it took place as the lead minesweeper in the D Day invasion of Normandy. And now it’s lying 1 kilometre from Miller’s Point!
The visibility wasn’t great (apparently fairly standard for this site), but it’s a fantastic wreck. Maximum depth (on the sand) is about 22 metres, so you can have a nice long dive in relative comfort. The wreck has all sorts of cool places to look inside, a ladder up to the deck, and for the brave (or foolhardy), some swimthroughs under the hull.
It was nudibranch paradise… Instead of giving my full attention to the mapping project we’d been set (drawing the wreck including estimates of width and length, the compass direction in which it’s lying, and depths on the deck and sand), I was taking National Geographic quality photos of those gorgeous sea slugs.Fortunately Kate’s map was good enough for both of us!
Tony was doing dive 4 with Cindy, an Open Water student, so Gerard, Kate, Tami (once she found us!) and I cruised the wreck investigating all the awesome features. We will definitely be diving this wreck a lot more in the future.
Weather permitting, we’ll do the second and third dives for the Wreck specialty next weekend or the weekend after that.
Here’s a rough edit of a lovely dive we did at Long Beach last year (Clare twisted my arm to put this up – I’m not happy with the state of polish of the final version), in 14 degree water with 7 metre visibility. The surface conditions were choppy, as you can see at the end of the video, but under the surface it was lovely.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1jjITWidvg&w=540]
There’s lots to see. Early on, look out for the common sandprawn (the large, white shrimpy thing). We see lots of their discarded carapaces at Long Beach but this is the only one we’ve seen with a sandprawn inside to date.
There’s also a huge cloud of fry – not sure which fish species, but clearly the imminent onset of spring was encouraging breeding! There’s a very brief shot of a chubby clingfish – the small orange chap clinging onto some sea lettuce, of which there is plenty. Watch out for the Cape topshell on the kelp, and a nudibranch egg ribbon on some green seaweed.
There’s an octopus, a super klipfish, a surprisingly tame puffadder shyshark and his relative the dark shyshark, and a fat longsnout pipefish. We saw a box sea jelly and a night light sea jelly, a peacock fanworm, and my favourite warty pleurobranch. And, of course, there are barehead gobies…
The video concludes with a shot of the inside of the barge wreck at Long Beach.
Pelagic creatures are those that live in the open ocean. They’re generally large, fast, or both. Diving with them is thrilling – I will never forget my first glimpse of a whitetip reef shark on a deep dive in Sodwana this month.
This book is another of Jack Jackson’s coffee table books – the other one I have read is his Dive Atlas of the World. Like that volume, this is a large-format, beautifully illustrated volume that combines contributions from various local experts. Chris Fallows features once again with an article about the great whites in Cape Town. Our sevengill cowsharks appear to be a well-kept secret!
There are many places where you can dive with sharks and rays in relatively shallow water, making for an awesome dive experience. We are extremely fortunate in the Cape to have such a variety of shark species on our doorstep. The sardine run and the whale sharks and manta rays further north into Mozambique are also close by.
I was interested to read several cautions agains wearing light-coloured fins in these articles, because the sharks apparently mistake them for something more edible than rubber and plastic!
The photographs in this book are magnificent and it’s sure to be a conversation starter (or stopper – if you get too absorbed)! You can get a copy of the book here.
