Seals – Page 11 – Learn to Dive Today Blog

Newsletter: Whale chasing surfers…

Hi divers

Seal at the safety stop in Smitswinkel Bay

Now that we are well on our way to spring, summer and the silly season it is time for many of you to dust off your logbooks, lose the slippers and put on your flippers… erm, fins. Diving conditions are great all year round in the Cape and despite the bad weather days we have sometimes, there are many, awesome days that beg to be dived. Going to work is one thing but taking a day’s leave in the week and diving is very, very, therapeutic… I call it Aquatic Therapy. Try it, it works.

The past week’s dives

Last weekend an 8 metre swell on Saturday kept most of us dry that day. We dived the MFV Orotava wreck in Smitswinkel Bay on Sunday. The surface conditions were decent but it was very surgy at depth. The visibility was good and we were doing Deep and Nitrox Specialties so this was the perfect dive for this. Diving was also good in the week and on Wednesday we had 27 degrees in the parking lot, not a breath of wind (conditions very suitable for tanning) and 8 metre visibility in the water.

Two friendly frilled nudibranchs on the Orotava

Weekend diving

This weekend will grace us with good diving on Saturday and less so on Sunday. We are doing a deep dive early on Saturday, to the Fleur, a wreck in the middle of False Bay that lies at around 40 metres on the sand. Grant will do another two launches, to the SAS Pietermaritzburg and to Roman Rock so if you are keen to go boating, which you should be, then shout.

I will spend the afternoon at Long Beach with Open Water students. Sunday is less easy to plan. The diving conditions will be good but it may be very cloudy and for some this relates to cold. I will decide Saturday afternoon but will dive at A Frame or Windmill Beach. There is a 3 metre swell which may just make A Frame difficult. Windmill Beach is often difficult on weekends due to the limited parking but on a cloudy day we may be lucky. It is a shore entry with a walk to the beach that is a little longer than the walk at Long Beach, but involves less rock scrambling. Shout if you are coming.

Gear

I have recently replaced some of my older gear and added a few extra items. If you rent gear from me on a regular basis please mail me for an updated price list.

Coastal Cleanup Day

Next Saturday morning we are joining OMSAC for International Coastal Cleanup Day, with a cleanup dive taking place in Hout Bay harbour. If you’d like to come along, sign up here and check out event details here. It costs R25, and payment must be made directly to OMSAC. If you need to rent gear for the dive, I can assist. I think it’s going to be quite festive.

This time last year

There are lots of whales in the bay at the moment. I watched a few surfers have a panic attack today and paddle faster than they thought possible when a whale surfaced less than 100 metres from them.

A whale greets three alarmed surfers in Muizenberg

Last year this time we had whales on the surface at the end of a dive in Smitswinkel Bay and that photo soon became the most viewed photo on our blog. Another ‘’last year’’ item, last year I made it possible for any of the courses I offer to be purchased on a split payment arrangement. This worked well for me and many of the students that dived last season. I am going to do the same again on a more permanent and easier payment system. If you want to do a course but don’t have the money, mail me and we can work out a payment schedule.

We have again sponsored some dive training for the Reach for a Dream Foundation. Last year they auctioned and sold raffle tickets for the courses we sponsored and collected a fair amount of money for this charity. So visit their website and help someone reach for a dream. It’s a very good cause.

regards

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

Diving is addictive!

Newsletter: Artificial reef, storms, and Coastal Cleanup

Hi divers

The weather has been kind this week and we had really good diving on Tuesday and Wednesday. The Cape water took a little getting used to again for me because the last dive I did in Malta was in 24 degree water…

Conditions this week were clean and clear

But when we dived on Wednesday we visited the artificial reef we are working on at Long Beach, and it showed a lot of happiness and life. It is amazing how quickly and thoroughly the items we placed in the water have been colonised.

Artificial reef materials - before — Artificial reef materials – before

The vase looks quite different now, two months later

International Coastal Cleanup Day

Saturday 17 September is International Coastal Cleanup Day, and this year we will again be joining OMSAC as they clean up Hout Bay Harbour. Each diver is issued with a mesh bag, and collects garbage from the dive location. A bit of judgment is required, because sometimes a piece of junk has been so grown over and inhabited by marine life that you’d do worse removing it than if you just left it there! If you’ve driven through Hout Bay Harbour on the way to a dive site in the Atlantic, you’ll know it’s usually sheltered, calm, and visited by massive seals!

Coffee jar freshly situated in the water

The information sign, newly placed in the water

This is an opportunity to dive in a place you wouldn’t usually be able to, and to do something good for the environment. It’ll be easy, shallow diving and there will be food on sale and a nice crowd of people to meet. Clare and I participated in their clean-up of Robben Island Harbour last year, and it was an incredibly well organised and enjoyable day out.

A small shyshark has made one of the coffee jars his home

Registration is R25 and if you want to come along you must arrange this directly with OMSAC. There is more information about how to register on the OMSAC home page.

Weekend diving

Diving this weekend is difficult to predict because of the weather. A large storm is expected on Sunday/Monday which brings massive swell and strong winds. The boats are not going out, but anyone who wants to dive please let me know, and if conditions permit on Saturday we will find a sheltered shore entry or two to explore.

Courses

I am currently busy with Deep and Nitrox Specialty courses, and have Open Water courses on the go too. If you’d like to further your training, you know how to contact me!

regards

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

Diving is addictive!

Dive sites: Tivoli Pinnacles

This is a recently discovered site near Roman Rock, named Tivoli Pinnacles because of its position east of Roman Rock (as Tivoli is east of Rome). It’s a very short boat ride straight out to sea from Long Beach, and the site is very close to the approach lanes for Simon’s Town Harbour.

We started our dive on top of one of the southern pinnacles, and drifted with the current, spending most of the dive at about 18-20 metres. The relief is quite flat away from the pinnacles, but there is a lot to see.

A smooth horsefish, trying not to be noticed

Tony found a horsefish, resting in a gap in the rocks, Andrew found an evil eye puffer fish for me to photograph, and I spotted a wide array of nudibranchs – mostly silvertip, crowned and gas flame.

This was a very easy dive in the conditions we did it in. There are ample opportunities to stop and examine the reef as you pass over it, and the depth is relatively constant. It was my second dive of the day and I actually went properly into deco… During the six minute deco/safety stop that my dive computer demanded a large and friendly seal frolicked around us. When we surfaced, he was leaping about next to the boat.

Papery burnupena and other encrustations on a sea fan (possibly!)

Cauliflower soft coral and mauve sea cucumbers

Grant had received a call that there was a large pod of dolphins off Kalk Bay harbour, probably feeding, so we followed the massive flock of cormorants north, and drove past the pod. There were maybe 500 long beaked common dolphins all together, including a lot of very tiny calves. It was beautiful.

Dive date: 5 June 2011

Air temperature: 23 degrees

Water temperature: 15 degrees

Maximum depth: 21.9 metres

Visibility: 10 metres

Dive duration: 42 minutes

Common long beaked dolphins on the surface

Sea life: Great white sharks

Tony and I went to Gansbaai to meet some great white sharks late last month. There’s more about our day out here, but here are some of my underwater pictures from the day. They are not particularly amazing, partly because I’m more inclined to be prolific than brilliant when you put a camera in my hand, and partly because the conditions in the water were mixed.

A 3 metre great white rising towards the bait

Though the water was very clean and blue, it was incredibly rough in the cage, and to be honest half the time I just wanted to look at the massive 4 metre creature cruising in front of me rather than fidget with my camera. But the sun came out, the water was crystal clear, and we had the most wonderful day (until we came home and found the house had flooded in our absence… Another story!).

Great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) grow to up to about 6 metres in length, and can weight up to 2.5 tons. They are believed to live at least 30 years, and are incredibly mobile in the world’s oceans – a shark tagged in Gansbaai swam to Australia and back within about nine months. The shark was named Nicole.

The Dyer Island great white shark population comprises mainly transient visitors who arrive and leave all year round, but is one of the world’s densest. They visit the area partly to feast on the 60,000 strong Cape fur seal population on Geyser Rock, and it is thought that they socialise or breed during the summer in the shallow waters of a nearby area close inshore.

This distinctively scarred shark stayed with us for a while

The sharks make full use of the water column, diving to up to 1,200 metres. Their typical hunting behaviour – rushing up from below to surprise prey – is well-known, and we noticed that most of the time we could see sharks below the cage in the deeper water, and that a lot of the animals approached the bait from below. The sharks in Gansbaai do not breach (jump clear out of the water), however, whereas this behaviour is common at Seal Island in False Bay.

Males and females can be differentiated by the claspers that are present on the males’ underbellies. None of my National Geographic-quality pictures illustrate this and I’m too shy to elaborate, however, so you’ll have to hit Google hard if you want more information. Richard Ellis’s book, Great White Shark, is a good source of a lot of the information we currently have about great white sharks, even though it is slightly dated.

Females mature at 4.5 to 5 metres in length and males are generally slightly smaller. We don’t usually get the absolutely huge females here – they seem to be more prevalent at the Farallon Islands off California. They have a complex social hierarchy, and we observed that when more than one shark was near the boat, they were reluctant to chase after the bait. Lacking protective membranes over their eyes, they roll their eyes back at the moment of attack, making them vulnerable.

These creatures are astonishingly gifted in the sensory department, with excellent hearing, vision, sense of smell, and the ability – thanks in part to their ampullae of Lorenzini – to sense electrical currents and vibrations in the water column.

They are thus superlative predators, thanks also in part to their capacity for keeping their body temperature above that of the surrounding water. This makes them smarter, faster and more awesome than most other fish. They have, like tuna, a rete mirabile – essentially a counter-current heat exchanger that uses blood flowing towards the gills (where it will cool down) to warm blood flowing back from the gills (that is already cool). In this way nothing is wasted.

Seeing them in the flesh was completely head-spinningly wonderful to me. The ethics of baited shark diving do give me sleepless nights on occasion, and it’s something I’d like to explore in more detail, but – as Georgina Jones pointed out – anything that gets people to look at sharks as wonderful, powerful and magnificent creatures rather than flavouring for soup is surely a good thing.

Article: Wired on the journey to the bottom of the sea

Wired magazine, source of many things interesting, published an article breaking down the depths of the sea according to who – or what – can get there. Check it out here.

Unfortunately it’s in imperial units (feet). A useful converter can be found here. Otherwise Google will do it for you: search for “3937 feet in metres” (that’s the maximum diving depth of the leatherback sea turtle – 1.2 kilometres!).

Diving with seals

There are a couple of dive sites in Cape Town that you can visit specifically to dive with the local Cape fur seals. There’s Seal Rock at Partridge Point in False Bay, and Duiker Island outside Hout Bay. These are both shallow, easy dives around large rocks, where the main attraction is the interaction you will have with hordes of curious seals. You will probably see seals if you go to Seal Island, too, but that won’t be to scuba – it’ll be to cage dive with the great white sharks there.

Tony checking out a seal above Tafelberg Reef

The dive sites near these seal colonies are often visited by these furry creatures, and it’s an absolute pleasure as a diver to have happy seals around while you’re exploring. We’ve had seals visit us on the SAS Fleur near Seal Island, at Partridge Point, and at the Tafelberg Reef complex. Sometimes you’ll see them at Long Beach, and often on the Clan Stuart.

These pictures were taken at Tafelberg Reef during a long safety stop we did there as part of Cecil’s Deep Specialty training. They mouthed Tony’s head and fins, Cecil’s pillar valve (while he was practising alternate air source use), and the bubbles rising from our regulators. They have large, scary looking teeth, but they don’t bite hard and as long as you keep your hands to yourself there’s nothing to worry about.

In manner and sometimes appearance, seals are like dogs. Bearing that in mind when you interact with them in the water, and being as cautious with them as you’d be with a large, strange but friendly dog, will serve you well. Have fun!

Newsletter: Seasons of the sea

Hi divers

We have had some amazing diving days of late. Friday saw conditions at Long Beach that we have been longing for for months. Warm, clean water with an abundance of life. The ocean’s seasons are very interesting aspects of diving for Clare and I, and thanks to Clare’s logbook and amazing photos we have a much better idea now than we had a year ago of what you can find and when.

We have been fortunate enough to see tiny octopus, warty pleurobranchs spawning egg ribbons, klipfish mating, huge rays feeding and shysharks having a feeding frenzy. We visited the cowsharks, watched sadly as injured and hooked sharks struggled to adapt to the harm inflicted upon them by man, and watched a juvenile jutjaw and a doublesash butterflyfish grow from 2 centimetres to close to 6 centimetres before they moved off from their tiny safe house to brave the ocean.

On the weekend Clare found a juvenile sole so small and so well camouflaged it almost avoided her beady eyes. We always find something new and interesting in the ocean. We have watched our small artificial reef go from bits of wood and plastic to a small colony of life. The list is endless.

Diving at this time of year is not to be missed. (That applies all year round!)

Recent dives

We dived the Atlantic early Sunday, Grant taking us to the yacht wreck on Klein Tafelberg reef. We were looking for depth to continue the Deep Specialty and our maximum depth was 37 metres in 10 degree water with amazing visibility, 15-20 metres. We had to perform a simulated emergency deco stop for 8 minutes and during this time we had seals nipping at Cecil and I, and a jellyfish bonanza. We had a dive time of 36 minutes and we dived on Nitrox.

From Hout Bay we dashed to Long Beach to dive with the two Divemaster candidates and continue the Advanced Course doing navigation. Back in the water once more for a Refresher, and home to download the photos. The ocean was warm at Long Beach, 17 degrees, calm and the visibility was 5-6 metres.

Part of the yacht wreck on Tafelberg Reef

Atlantic diving should start to fade soon as the seasons change and the prevailing winds come from the north west. This cleans and cools to False Bay area and the visibility gets better and better.

Trips

We are off to Sodwana on Saturday for a four night/six dive trip, and the group, 13 in total, are all looking forward to this. We will post photos and video when we get back. I think we have five or six cameras for this event so there are bound to be loads of good photos.

Planned dives

We are hoping to book two launches for the Friday after we return from Sodwana, that being Easter Friday and booking is essential. We will plan to go to a wreck for the first dive and possibly a barge wreck or reef for the second launch. I need to give Grant some numbers before I leave for Sodwana so please let me know as soon as possible.

Courses

I am starting a new Deep Specialty course as soon as we get back from travelling. It’s a good idea to do the enriched air/Nitrox specialty at the same time. This combination qualifies you to dive to 40 metres, and gives you longer bottom times and safer diving.

Regards

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

Diving is addictive!

Dive sites: SAS Fleur

SAS Somerset (on the right) at anchor in the V&A Waterfront

The current Deep Specialty we are running took us to visit the wreck of the SAS Fleur last weekend. She lies in 42 metres of water in the middle of False Bay. It was a 25 minute boat ride from our Long Beach pickup on a flat calm sea.

The bow of the SAS Somerset (the Fleur's sister ship)

This is the sister ship to the SAS Somerset moored behind the Two Oceans Aquarium and the rounded form is clearly visible along the length of the hull. The Fleur was sunk by naval gunfire near Simon’s Town on 8 October 1965.

We descended on the shot line and slowed at 20 metres. We were already able to see the whole wreck below us – the conditions were exceptional but it was quite dark. We stopped briefly at 25 metres to ensure everyone was in good shape without any nitrogen narcosis, dropped a little lower to 30 metres and checked again. A final check took place at 35 metres on the deck of the wreck.

The superstructure of the ship seen from above

The ship is rusted extensively and most if not all the decking and side plates are rusted through, giving you an extremely clear view of everything inside the shell. We found several sleeping pyjama sharks and a catshark inside one of the hatches on the deck of the ship.

The visibilty was a good 10 to 12 metres on the wreck with a water temperature of 14 degrees. There was a strong current running parallel to the orientation of the ship on the sand. Large schools of fish hung over the wreck, facing into the current.

Mussels, urchins and strawberry anemones

The wreck is heavily encrusted with mussels, each of which is in turn encrusted with strawberry sea anemones in beautiful shades of pink. There are many urchins, and also some large tube worms, which really give the feel of being in deep water!

We returned to the line and started a slow ascent with a stop at 20 metres, 10 metres and finally a 5 metre stop. We deployed SMBs as we started our series of safety stops, because given the exposed nature of the site and the possiblity of seeing sharks on the way up, it was very important for Grant to know exactly where to expect our heads to break the surface.

Cecil, Clare and I were using 15 litre Nitrox 30% cylinders, and ascended with plenty of air to spare. We were entertained by seals at our safety stops, and a large group of them frolicked near the dive boat as we waited to climb in after the dive. The dive site is quite close to Seal Island, but happy and comfortable seals indicated that we didn’t need to worry about sharks that day.

This is a spectacular dive, and we were very fortunate to do it in perfect conditions.

Dive date: 2 April 2011

Air temperature: 23 degrees

Water temperature: 12 degrees

Maximum depth: 36.4 metres

Visibility: 12 metres

Dive duration: 29 minutes

Bookshelf: Great White and Eminent Grey

Great White and Eminent Grey – Chris Fallows

Chris Fallows is the man behind Apex Predators, the shark cage diving and viewing company that operates out of Simon’s Town. I say it as though Apex is the only shark cage operator there, but in fact they’re one of several. TONY AND I ARE EXTREMELY EXCITED THAT WE ARE GOING TO SEE THE SHARKS IN JUNE!

He’s known for his photographic work, with great white sharks as the subject. He has also been responsible for several episodes of Air Jaws on the Discovery Channel’s annual Shark Week.

I’ve been wanting to get this book for Tony for a while, and the arrival of my fourth quarter Fanatics reward voucher from Exclusive Books, while not covering the entire outlay required, was sufficient impetus to send me scurrying to the lower ground floor of Cavendish Square. As if they were expecting me, a single copy had just that day arrived in the shop. The rest is history.

This is a large-format coffee table book (though I hate the idea of having books “on display”) comprising mainly photographs by Chris Fallows. There’s a bit of text on his background (very interesting) and on events at Seal Island, but Fallows doesn’t stray from his area of expertise, which is the predation activities of great white sharks. He’s the first to admit that he has no formal marine biology training, but that everything he knows he’s learned from observing these incredible creatures.

That said, Fallows is one of the few people involved with sharks in Cape Town who is prepared to share his knowledge, and for this Tony and I – as regular water users – are deeply grateful. The depth of understanding of great white sharks that he’s achieved through years of data gathering and observation of their activities at Seal Island is profound.

Tony will write a review of this book himself, focusing more on the photos (I think), but suffice it to say that they are magnificent and awe inspiring. My only complaint was that some of the double-page spreads with the subject (generally a shark) in the middle were obscured by the spine of the book.

The book is available here if you’re in South Africa, otherwise from here.

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