If you’d happened to look out to sea from Long Beach, Kommetjie just after lunchtime on Saturday 23 August, may have seen – just at the limits of your sight – a group of 20-25 surfers, sitting on their boards in the middle of a flat ocean. If you’d continued watching for a while, you would have seen giant sets of swell rolling through the group of surfers, and, as the afternoon progressed, you’d have seen more and more of those waves being surfed.
Curling wave at Sunset
The waves were breaking at Sunset Reef, an outcrop shaped like a wedge about one kilometre offshore from Long Beach. There is a lot of kelp in this area, and it isn’t particularly deep, but the deep water is not far away, which has something to do with why this wave stands up the way it does. It’s not Dungeons by any stretch of the imagination (and on this particular day, one of the surfers told Tony that the wave was a “four out of ten” for size), but for a recreational surfer, or me – who doesn’t surf – it’s a remarkable sight.
A wedge of water
There were long lulls between the sets, and after a while I started to get disoriented and forget where the wave breaks. Later in the afternoon, the waves got bigger and bigger, and once the surfers started to stand up on the waves we could see just how fast they were moving. Some of the surfers stayed further inshore, and just did short, speedy rides on the shoulder of the waves as they came past, looking relaxed and loose limbed as they caught a ride closer to the beach.
Racing down the wave
One of the first swells after we arrived
Spray trailing behind
End of the ride
Back of a wave
Surfers at the bottom of a wave
Steep face
Riding the shoulder
Getting into position
White foam
Apparently flat seas towards Kommetjie
Photographers in front of a wave
Foam and spray
Casual ride
Several surfers seize the gap
Narrow escape
Froth and noise
Harry casual
Noordhoek end of Chapman’s Peak drive in the background
Bodies everywhere
Jet ski in on the action
Last ride
In the distance, below Slangkop lighthouse, we could see a parade of swells and breaking waves at another shallow reef. We had a wonderful time, enjoying the display of natural power, as well as being entertained and awed by the surfers.
We dived out of Hout Bay last weekend, visiting the Oakburn and BOS 400 on one dive, and the kelp forest a bit north of Duiker Island for the second dive. Liam spotted a huge ocean sunfish in Maori Bay while diving the BOS, and Clare chased it (unsuccessfully), filming this dodgy video. Even though the fish is moving its fins at such a leisurely pace, it’s powering through the water. We had beautiful conditions above and below the water, with surprising 15 degree temperatures, and enjoyed our unseasonal Atlantic jaunt.
Loryn descending at Duiker Island
This weekend
We have not had good weekend weather for quite a few weeks this winter, so it’s great to see another warm, windless weekend coming up. We plan to visit some of False Bay’s beautiful reefs, colourful and bursting with life. Atlantis has a couple of shallow pinnacles and a jumble of rocks and pillars that drop down to 27 metres on the sand, if you feel like a deep dive. It’s also perfectly suitable for Open Water divers. We will also do a wreck dive to the SAS Pietermaritzburg on Sunday. This special ship participated in the D-Day landings at Normandy during World War II.
Whale watching trip
We are planning to do a boat based whale watching trip in False Bay with Dave Hurwitz of Simon’s Town Boat Company one weekend in September or early October, depending on availability. Dave is licensed to approach whales to within a few tens of metres, whereas the rest of us mortals must stay 300 metres away from them unless they surface or approach near us, and even then we have to move away as soon as possible.
We did this trip last year and it was a wonderful experience. There is nothing quite like being close enough to a whale to hear it breathe. If you’d like to come along, please let me know before the end of this week, so that we can include you in the planning. The trip is R850 for adults and lasts several hours. For an idea of recent whale activity, check out the Boat Company facebook page.
Punishment
Occasionally divers on our boat will refer to certain items of dive gear as flippers and goggles. This drives me nuts and for a long time I have wondered about a cure. I have one now. All divers will be required to have a credit card on board. Spot fines, or liquid punishment as I would like to call them, will then be issued for transgressions. These can vary wildly but the minor issues such as flipper will carry less of a fine than harsher offences such as requests to “open my oxygen” or “turn me on”. We can also fine the first person to say they are “cold” or “I was sweating underwater”, or uses the word “toasty”. These payments can be made instantly as we now have a credit card machine on the boat.
Weekly nags
You need your MPA permit if you come for a dive in False Bay. I have temporary permits available but it’s much more cost effective to go to the post office and get one that’s valid for a year. Regardless of where we go, you should ideally have a surface marker buoy (SMB) and know how to deploy it, or dive with someone who does (preferably the former).
The Clan Stuart is an iron shipwreck that is 100 years old this year. One of the few shipwrecks in Cape Town that is accessible as a shore dive, she is also occasionally dived by boat. Her engine block protrudes from the water at almost all states of the tide – sticking far out at spring low, and almost covered at spring high.
Heavily encrusted engine block of the Clan Stuart
Divers tend to encounter the engine block of the Clan Stuart wreck from below, looming abruptly ahead of them as they traverse the wreck. Anglers view it from the vantage point of the beach, casting their lines in front of and around it. Dog walkers have a similar view. Everyone else sees this piece of False Bay history from the road or train, as they head into Simon’s Town or back towards Fish Hoek. Occasionally navy cadets, snorkelers, or (according to legend) scuba divers after a great white shark sighting will climb on top of the engine block, but for the most part – maybe because of its rough and unwelcoming texture – it’s left to the oyster catchers, gulls, and mussels.
The Clan Stuart engine block seen from a stern facing position
On a rare windless day in False Bay, when the water was calm and surprisingly clean, Tony, Christo and I took a trip out to Mackerel Bay after dropping the divers off at the jetty in Simon’s Town. Tony was in the middle of doing some work on the boat, and wanted to show me how well it was going.
The Clan Stuart engine block
We were able to approach the engine block of the Clan Stuart quite closely. You can see in the photo above that the water was quite clean, and we could see the kelp on the wreck and some of the shallower wreckage. The engine of the ship was a triple expansion steam engine, and the engine block has three separate cylinders in which the hot steam was expanded.
Seaward side of the Clan Stuart engine block
We look forward to seeing the finished Clan Stuart documentary that some local filmmakers and researchers are compiling!
One Sunday in early April, Tony did a very early launch for an Aquaventures PADI IDC, taking the divers to the wreck of the BOS 400 and to dive with seals at Duiker Island in Hout Bay. You can see in the photo above that the sun hasn’t even reached Maori Bay as the divers kit up! The visibility on the BOS 400 was about six metres, and it was about eight metres at Duiker Island. At the wrecks inside Hout Bay (the Aster and Katsu Maru), there were reports of visibility of up to 15 metres.
The BOS 400
Rusty hull of the BOS 400
Close up of the BOS 400
After the early launch, Tony and I took the boat for a drive south towards Cape Point. We weren’t in a rush, partly because we needed to run in the boat’s motors gently, and so we stopped to look at the scenery.
Chapmans Peak drive
Chapmans Peak
Door in the cliff
Rocky cliffs along Chapmans Peak
Chapman’s Peak Drive is carved out of the mountainside at the intersection of the Cape granite and sedimentary layers (geologists love this fact), and this can be seen clearly in areas where the mountain isn’t highly vegetated (such in as the photo above). Tony showed me a strange “door in the cliff” – a neat rectangular opening (it seems) that looks like it should be in The Hobbit. You can’t approach it closely on a boat because there’s foul ground in front of it, and the sea is turbulent even when there’s not much swell.
Sea spray on Long Beach, Noordhoek
Long Beach is long. There were lovely big waves, with spray unfurling from their tops in the light breeze. We could see horse riders on the beach, surfers in the swell, and at one point right across False Bay to the Hottentots Holland and Hangklip. Further down, the boiler of the Kakapo shipwreck was clearly visible on the sand.
Calm seas to Hout Bay
Slangkop lighthouse
Standing in the bow
Big waves rolling in near the Kakapo
Tony on board
View across False Bay from the Atlantic
Idle near a small kelp forest off Long Beach, Kommetjie
Slangkop lighthouse (pardon the blurry photo) is being painted, it seems – the building is completely clad in scaffolding. This was our turning around point, but first we had coffee and a snack. Boating makes you hungry!
Slangkop lighthouse getting a facelift
On the way back we stopped a few times to look around (Tony was looking for a whale shark, after NSRI report from St Helena Bay the previous day, and unconfirmed sightings of one in Kommetjie) and dangle our (ok, my) feet in the freezing water. There was an offshore wind blowing. In places the air was freezing cold, and in others the hot wind, smelling strongly of fynbos, made everything wonderfully pleasant.
Clean water and kelp near Duiker Island
The Sentinel
Cormorants near Duiker Island
We took a drive across the mouth of Hout Bay to Duiker Island, where the water looked quite clean. There were snorkelers in the water with the seals. I drove us back from the island (slowly) – I don’t have a skippers licence yet, and in order to get one I need (supervised) hours on the boat. So this was practice.
The Seal Alert boat is in disrepair
Napping on an outboard
Seal ready to go to sea
Once inside Hout Bay harbour, we milled around a bit waiting for the slipway to clear (some poachers were launching, amongst other activity). We came across the Seal Alert boat, which has sunk into disrepair but is a very enjoyable resting spot for some of the local seals. There are also a few boats that have sunk at their moorings – apparently because their drain plugs were stolen.
Boat out for repair at Hout Bay harbour
Half sunken in Hout Bay harbour
Promising wreck dive in the harbour?
Derelict ships in Hout Bay harbour
Fishing vessels moored in Hout Bay
Divers going out from Hout Bay
The middle (bright green) ship in the picture of the fishing vessels moored in the harbour in the above gallery of images, is the sister ship of a ship that ran aground off Betty’s Bay in February, breaking up and spilling huge amounts of fuel near the vulnerable penguin colony.
Usually it’s Fish Hoek beach that gets loaded down with kelp after a south easterly wind…
Long Beach full of kelp
Last weekend there was so much kelp at Long Beach that we had to climb over a wall of it to get into the water. I haven’t seen this before in over four years of diving here. It was a result of the wind we had the week before.
So should anyone want to do a boat dive off of our boat Seahorse, for this weekend only it will be totally free. There is a catch, and that is you will be required to assist in paddling out to the dive site as the boat is currently powerless.
For those not keen on paddling we will do training dives at Long Beach on Saturday and possibly Sunday. The viz is over 10 metres at the moment so even if tomorrow’s wind hurts a bit it will still be great by the weekend. Saturday will be fantastic in False Bay. On Sunday a 4-5 metre swell is forecast to roll in, but they don’t always arrive on schedule.
Stepping over a wall of kelp at Long Beach
We had reasonable conditions last weekend and managed to do several Discover Scuba students at Long Beach. A massive ray chilling in the sand just inside the wreck was a hit with everyone.
Sodwana trip
The group that is joining us in Sodwana – we will be fourteen divers in total – should get a mail from Clare sometime this weekend about settling the final balance of your bookings. Looking forward to it – less than a month to go!
Grumpy sea has thrown lots of kelp onto Scarborough beach
Scarborough is a conservation village, quite remotely situated on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula, just north of Cape Point. It’s very unspoiled, and its unique charm is jealously guarded by its residents. If you’re a bird watcher, or are desperate to escape the metropolitan charms of central Cape Town (or the hustle and bustle of Sun Valley, like us), this is a wonderful place to spend some quiet time close to the ocean.
Fish Hoek beach after a strong south easterly wind
This is why the shark barrier net at Fish Hoek is removed every evening, and only put into the water when conditions are favourable and the wind isn’t too strong. It would be weighed down and damaged by the volume of kelp that gets washed up the bay when the wind blows like this for a prolonged period.
Here’s Craig Killops’s account of the dive at the Clan Stuart last Saturday. Craig (on the far left in the photo above) is just about to qualify as a Divemaster, and has just passed one of the most stressful tests any DM will have to face!
3, 2, 1…. Backward roll! Four divers perform a negative entry whilst I and a diver with drysuit remain at the surface after a positive entry. Diver with drysuit starts drifting slowly away from me, about 4 metres, whilst trying to organise himself. We give each other the okay signal and go down. I see the all too familiar silhouette , as seen on documentaries, glide between myself and the diver wearing the drysuit. I keep an eye on drysuit diver and try signal but diver too busy with equipment.
I head off to the rest of the group to signal that a shark has been spotted. Before the message has even been conveyed I see all eyes enlarged and focused behind me, the now clearly visible shark circled back showing its true inquisitive nature. Now with the group I notice that the drysuit diver is not with us and Christo also discovers this whilst we carry out a head count. We lay low on the sandy bottom at 10 metres and make our way quickly and calmly to the wreck.
As we are seeking cover in the kelp on the wreck a sillouette approaches again – it is not the shark but the drysuit diver, mid water. We signal him to stay low and to quickly come join the group as he is still oblivious to the presence of the shark. About ten seconds after he joins us the now very curious shark makes a full frontal approach towards Christo and myself ,we are up front to the left hand side of the group. When we blow bubbles (tactically or nervously…?) the shark makes a sudden turn at most two metres away from us into the green haze.
We calmed ourselves and ensured everybody was okay and accounted for. After brief comms Christo and I agree to stay low and take the group back for a shore exit roughly 150 metres away, which was probably the longest swim I have experienced mentally. Staying low on the wreck caused myself and another diver to drop our weight belts due to snagging. Big thank you to Christo for his prompt assistance in getting my weight belt back on. Not exactly the time you want to be floating to the surface.
Tucked up in a huddle formation we headed off , Christo keeping a left lookout whilst I keep a right lookout and both of ensuring the group is in close pursuit . With a 3 metre swell running into the bay there were fair sized shorebreakers on the beach which made shore exit interesting. Once we were all safely ashore we signaled the boat to say we were okay. Tony needed no explanation of what had happened – he had a front row seat to watch the dark shadow circling the group. Big thank you to shore support Clare Lindeque who arrived to transport some excited divers back to the harbour for a repetitive dive at Roman Rock, I think the Clan Stuart had provided its entertainment and blissful memories for the day.
Will definitely be keeping an extra wary eye out when diving the Clan Stuart from now on.
