Saturday & Sunday: early launches in False Bay, conditions permitting
Storm clouds at Muizenberg
Visibility in both the Atlantic and False Bay is very patchy today. We dived in False Bay yesterday and had a very dirty top layer, with cleaner and colder water below 10 metres. There is north westerly wind tomorrow and a little rain. There is a 50/50 chance we have cleaner conditions for the weekend.
I would like to launch both days in False Bay if the conditions permit. Let me know if you’re keen to be on board.
Sunday: Boat dives (max depth 18 metres) from Hout Bay
The weekend forecast is pretty much a copy of last weekend, and the one before. Saturday has strong south easterly wind and some swell, and Sunday is almost windless with a swell of less than 2 metres. This all points to Hout Bay as being the best option.
So Hout Bay it is, meeting on Sunday at 8.30 on the slipway. Both dives will be to a maximum depth of 18 metres, so suitable for Open Water divers. Let me know if you want to come diving.
Fudge and Blue
Earth Hour
Don’t forget Earth Hour on Saturday, from 8.30-9.30 pm in whatever your local timezone is… Have a candlelight dinner and contemplate how you can be a better steward of the earth’s resources. This year’s focus is climate change. Want to learn more about it? We recommend this book by a team of South African scientists.
Last weekend we had boat dives out of Hout Bay, to two of the lesser dived sites (the Sentinel and Die Josie). Maori Bay was very green but we found lovely visibility right up against the mountains.
Happy divers at Die Josie
The water in False Bay is very clean and cold right now. Sadly, the wind for Saturday is at the limit of what I think will be pleasant. Sunday’s wind will be way too strong. Furthermore, the Navy Festival this weekend spells traffic chaos as well as parking issues for boat trailers and tow cars.
These reasons induce me to skip diving over the weekend and plan boat dives for Tuesday, which is a public holiday. The Atlantic will again be cool, flat and clean so we will launch from Hout Bay, nice and early. Text or Whatsapp me if you want to be updated on meeting times and dive sites.
Last weekend’s dives were pretty good; the visibility was better further south on Sunday. On Saturday we met an octopus at Long Beach, who tried very hard to persuade us he was a piece of kelp.
Octopus imitating kelp
This week has had a fair whack of wind on and off, and False Bay currently looks pretty grumpy with very little sign of visibility. Hout Bay also looked a little off this morning, but the wind should have improved that.
I will stick my neck out and say we will launch on Saturday, and it needs to be really early as the wind picks up around midday.
Where we will need to wait for a visual check late tomorrow to decide which side of the mountain we will dive. I don’t think the conditions will be great for training dives and we may end up in the cold Atlantic. Either way we meet at 7.30 am at either Hout Bay slipway or False Bay Yacht Club parking in Simons Town. Text me if you want to join in.
The weather forecast for the weekend is wind, wind and more wind. Not diving weather, unfortunately. Later sunrises, earlier sunsets and the slow decrease in the number of windy days suggests that lovely autumn diving is around the corner. Hopefully we won’t all be too dried out by then!
Saturday: Launching from Simons Town yacht club at 8.30 am, to be confirmed on Friday afternoon
Atlantis sea fans
The wind has been punishing, but there’s very little blowing tomorrow, which means the visibility could go either way. We will plan launches for Saturday morning, from the yacht club in Simons Town.
I’ll look at the conditions tomorrow afternoon. If you’ve let me know you’re keen to dive, I’ll let YOU know whether we can. So if you want to get wet on Saturday, please be in touch.
A magic wand would be the right tool to fix the weather. The wind has been relentless and despite odd periods of calm, mostly early in the mornings, there has been reasonably good visibility in between the patches of red tide.
Frilled nudibranch
Sadly this weekend is again going to be dry as the window of light wind is really small early on Saturday, and then it howls again until Tuesday. Wednesday and onwards next week do look like good diving days so if you are up for a weekday dive get in touch.
The weekend forecast looks mostly like it is going to be a cool – or rather cold – water dive weekend. There is a fair amount of swell on Saturday, too much for my liking. Sunday has less swell and a little less wind. Hout Bay will most likely be the best option as the wind is fairly strong south easterly which is not all that pleasant in False Bay.
View towards Simons Town from Glencairn
It will again be an early start as I have both Open Water and Advanced students, so we will likely meet at 7.00 am at the slipway in Hout Bay. Text me if you are diving.
The on and off westerly and south easterly winds made life difficult for the fire fighters fighting a blaze in Simon’s Town yesterday. When you see the extent of the burn you realise they have tough decisions to make and are constantly risking their lives. This makes it hard for me to complain about not knowing where to dive… It seems irrelevant in light of what they do as a day job!
View of Simon’s Town from Red Hill after yesterday’s fire
We will launch for boat dives on Sunday, most likely in False Bay from Simon’s Town jetty. We will start early, meeting at 7.30 am. Let me know if you want to dive.
