NSRI – Page 6 – Learn to Dive Today Blog

A primer on shark spotting

Wonderful and vital work is being done by the Shark Spotters team. Their aim is to reduce in-water interactions between sharks and humans. Shark Spotters is a registered nonprofit organisation that employs a team of spotters along the False Bay coast and at Noordhoek on the Atlantic coast of the Cape Peninsula. The program has been in action since 2004, and from somewhat ad-hoc beginnings is now supported by the WWF and City of Cape Town. They also work closely with the NSRI. You can spot the Muizenberg spotter on top of Boyes drive, and more team members at other high-up vantage points around the peninsula.

New signage

New signage was erected in late 2010, but not one of the people (friends and family) I’ve spoken to is quite clear on the meanings of the different warning flags. This is a matter of life and… well, a toothy bite to an extremity at best, or death at worst. So I thought it was important to put a little refresher up on the blog. Read, and learn!

Red dots indicate beaches where shark spotters are on duty

There are four flags, each with a different meaning:

green means visibility for spotting is good, and no sharks can be seen
red means a shark has been seen recently but the spotters can’t see it any more
black means visibility for spotting is poor but no sharks can be seen
white with a black shark on the flag means a shark has been sighted and swimmers should get out of the water. A siren will be sounded.

The above information was taken from the Shark Spotters website, here. There’s more information about shark behaviour on the website at this link. The Shark Spotters blog is updated frequently with a list of sightings.

What does this mean for you?

You should be cautious if a red or a white flag is flying, and you plan to use the sea. A black flag is quite common in False Bay, especially in the middle of the day when it’s sunny, and when it’s windy, so it’s hard to be prescriptive about what you should do then!

Relevance for divers

I don’t think that divers should be unnecessarily concerned about shark sightings, but I do think this should inform our activities in the water. It’s never a good idea to thrash around on the surface for any length of time, but particularly during high shark activity periods. If you’re doing a shore entry, swim all the way up the beach before surfacing. Avoid long surface swims – manage your air consumption carefully. If you’re boat diving, don’t mess around – get back into the boat quickly, and help the other divers to do so as well.

Tony has seen two great white sharks while diving since he’s been in Cape Town. Both times the shark checked him and his students out, and swam away. Both times he said that prior to sighting the shark there was an eerie, quiet feeling underwater and there were no fish or other marine life about. The first time he thought it might have been a coincidence, but when it happened again, we decided that it probably wasn’t coincidental. Trust your gut – if you feel uncomfortable, stay on the bottom, and make your way out of the water.

Most of all, though, remember that if you do see a shark while diving, it’s an incredible privilege. We are visiting the sharks’ domain, and they deserve our respect and awe.

Dive sites: BOS 400

This wreck is so spectacular from above the surface that I did a separate post with photos I took prior to this dive. It’s situated in Maori Bay, just outside Hout Bay. You can’t miss it!

The helipad at the stern of the vessel collapsed in September 2010 (in the Google maps image here, the helipad is still intact – it’s the circular feature on the left), and this seems to have stabilised the wreck quite significantly. Last time I was in Maori Bay the crane was creaking ominously in a strong swell, but she was silent on the most recent visits I’ve done.

Tony has not been an enthusiastic Atlantic diver since his arrival in Cape Town in late September 2009. He’s used to the warm seas of Jordan, Sodwana and Mozambique, and while False Bay is chilly but tolerable, he found the Atlantic unbearable. Dives like this one, however, have been changing his mind. Combine 25 metre visibility with an industrial wreck of monumental proportions (both above and below the surface) and he’s in heaven. He says it’s one of the best dives he has ever done.

The wreckage is identifiable in many cases – as staircases, the helipad, causeways and the components of the crane – but much of it is completely mangled. Large sheets of metal are curled at the edges like paper held to a flame. Wreck penetration is a definite possiblity here – with great care, but there are certainly opportunities.

The size of the crane is such that one could spend a lifetime exploring the site and not get bored. We didn’t even get to the SS Oakburn, which lies under the stern of the BOS 400 and is a much older wooden steamer, very broken up.

As far as sea life goes, there’s a fair amount of lush red and green seaweed. I found some friendly klipfish and lots of West Coast rock lobster, but the main attraction is the wreckage so I didn’t spend a lot of time looking at small areas or really close to things.

The contrast of the sandy-bottomed bay peppered with round boulders behind you, and the massive metal hulk in front of you, is stunning. We’ll be back!

Dive date: 16 December 2010

Air temperature: 23 degrees

Water temperature: 7 degrees

Maximum depth: 23.9 metres

Visibility: 25 metres

Dive duration: 37 minutes

If you’re interested in visible shipwrecks, check out my ebook Cape Town’s Visible Shipwrecks: A Guide for Explorers!

Bookshelf: Atlas of Dive Sites of South Africa & Mozambique

Atlas of Dive Sites of South Africa & Mozambique – Fiona McIntosh

Atlas of Dive Sites of South Africa and Mozambique

This is a brand new release from MapStudio and diver-author Fiona McIntosh. McIntosh specialises in outdoor adventure topics (hiking routes, caving, etc.) and she has produced a handy volume detailing the best dive spots around South Africa in some detail. The “atlas” moniker is accurate: the volume includes maps of the whole area, with inserts depicting the dive sites in question. This potentially enables experienced divers to explore sites independently of a local operator.

There are only a few sites featured in each area, but the dive sites featured are the “best” in each location. They have been selected on the basis of safetly, and pristine condition. There are additional sites listed, along with their locations, but maps and reviews only appear for the short list of top dive sites in each place.

There are lots of interesting sidebars detailing local attractions (for example, a shyshark and catshark feeding dive offered in Mossel Bay, seahorse hunting in Knysna, the chokka dive in Port Elizabeth every August, and shark cage diving in False Bay at Seal Island). The dive site descriptions include details of what marine life can be seen, and the nature of the entry (important for shore dives). Made me want to put on my kit and get in the water again as soon as possible! The weekend is too far away…

I was interested to see the quality of diving offered on the south coast in locations such as Plettenberg Bay. Apparently there are also some super dives in Hermanus, though no permanent dive operator there. The atlas definitely made me want to travel!

At the back of the atlas is a section on marine life, by SURG‘s Georgina Jones. It’s a whirlwind tour, of necessity, since it covers not only the Cape but the entire South African coastline.

The book also includes contact details of the various dive operators around the country, as well as general dive tourism information. I was pleased to note that in the Cape Town section, McIntosh includes the web address of Peter Southwood’s wikivoyage page on diving around the Cape Peninusla and False Bay for those who require more detailed information.

Tony and I attended the launch last week, at the NSRI Station at the Waterfront (very cool venue!) and enjoyed catching up with the diving establishment of Cape Town. Fiona gave a whirlwind tour of diving in Southern Africa (the Mozambique section of her talk – and of the atlas – made me drool), and Georgina did a natural history tour of Cape diving for us. We are definitely very fortunate here in the Cape!

You can get a copy of the atlas here.

Gift ideas for Christmas

Anyone who’s had the misfortune to set foot in a shopping mall lately will be aware that Christmas decorations are out, and Christmas shopping is in full swing.

If you have a diver, or potential diver, in your life, getting them something to do with their hobby as a Christmas or Hannukah gift is a good idea. Lucky for you, Learn to Dive Today has suggestions for all budgets!

Under R300

Check out the bookshelf category for book ideas, and the movies and documentaries categories for DVD gift ideas.

Under R1000

What about a Discover Scuba Diving gift voucher from Learn to Dive Today? The Discover Scuba Diving (DSD) experience is designed for people who have never dived before, and want to try it out – perhaps before committing to a full Open Water course, or perhaps just for the experience.

You’ll meet at the beach, have a short briefing explaining the gear and basic dive principles and safety, and then go in the water. Tony will teach you a couple of essential skills – very basic things like mask clearing – and then you go for a dive. That way you get to experience what it’s like to be a diver, first hand, to see if the bug bites!

If you enjoy the dive and want to take it further, you can get the cost of the DSD credited towards your Open Water course.

If you want to order a voucher, email Tony.

Over R1000

Can I get on your Christmas list?! You might find possible gifts in the Gadgets and Gear category – from dive gear to cameras…

Any budget

Have you considered making a donation to the organisation of your choice – Reach for a Dream, the NSRI, or SANCCOB for example – on behalf of your gift recipient? This is a very special gift that has the potential to do a lot of good in this world that so badly needs it, and impacts more than just the people giving and receiving the gift.

Newsletters you should be subscribed to

As a veteran newsletter subscriber, and someone who actually ENJOYS getting them in my inbox (not everyone does) – probably a sad reflection on my self esteem, that I need to request people to email me! – I can offer you the following hints for signing up:

Some websites have a Subscribe box on their front page. Use it!
The other place to look for a subscription option is on the Contact page.
If there’s no explicit newsletter link, it’s often worth dropping the site owner an email asking to be subscribed to their newsletter if they have one. If they don’t, perhaps they’ll take the hint and start something up…

You can get subscribed to Tony’s newsletter by emailing him. It tells you about planned dives and courses, as well as report backs on recent underwater activity.

If that’s not enough, check out the following newsletter writers:

Cape Town

Keep up with what’s going on at the Two Oceans Aquarium at the V&A Waterfront by signing up for their newsletter. They have regular concerts, conservation activities, and other special events at the aquarium.

Chris and Monique Fallows at Apex Predators run shark cage diving and photography trips to Seal Island. We haven’t done a trip yet – wanted to go in high shark season but this year it corresponded with high World Cup tourist season, so we’ll do it next year – but their detailed updates on the marine activity in False Bay are awesome… Sightings of of orcas, dolphins, whales and sharks abound, and Chris’s photos are amazing.

Diving

PADI sends out newsletters periodically, describing diving destinations, certification options, and other bits and bobs related to scuba diving. Depending on which box you ticked when you registered for your course, you may already be on their mailing list.

Magazines

The Dive Site is South Africa’s best diving magazine. By a LONG way. And that’s after only one issue! They send out a weekly newsletter by email filled with photos, blogs, competitions and event notifications, and if you haven’t managed to get a print subscription to the magazine, it’s available on their website in digital format.

African Diver Magazine is an online-only magazine published once a quarter. If you join their mailing list, you’ll get a notification when the new edition is released.

Conservation & Volunteering

South African

If you’re using the ocean at all, whether as a diver, surfer, beachgoer or sailor, you should be supporting the National Sea Rescue Institute (NSRI). They are staffed entirely by volunteers and do amazing work. It costs R100 per year to be a member, and you get a cool magazine every quarter. They also have a newsletter.

SANCCOB (The Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds) is in the news every time an oil spill gets on the feathers of our cormorants and penguins. They are a non-profit seabird conservation and protection organisation based in Cape Town. There is a volunteer program if you want to get your hands dirty (and get nipped!). They have a newsletter.

Conservation and shark specialty diver training body SharkLife has a newsletter – look for the link in the left column of their site.

Underwater Africa is an advocacy group that liaises with government regarding Marine Protected Areas and the permits we require to dive in them. Register with them to receive updates – this should concern all South African divers.

The South African branch of the World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) has an e-newsletter. They’re the people who run the SASSI initiative – if you don’t know about it, you should!

International

National Geographic has a range of newsletters you can pick and choose from. Their photography in particular is spectacular.

The National Ocean Service is part of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and sends out a periodic newsletter. Their educational Ocean Explorer program also has a newsletter.

Project AWARE is all about divers conserving marine environments. They’re an international organisation and it’s well worth getting on their mailing list to stay informed. There’s a Project AWARE specialty course that divers can do.

Ocean Conservancy is the non-profit organisation behind International Coastal Cleanup Day and several other conservation initiatives. Worth keeping up to date with their news.

The Save Our Seas Foundation has a newsletter, but it seems to get sent out VERY irregularly… like once a year. May be worth signing up for, as they do really good work.

The Smithsonian Ocean Portal sends out a newsletter advertising events, updates to their blogs, and covering ocean news. The Smithsonian is a venerable institution that encapsulates almost everything that is interesting about America… Check it out!

Why it’s a good idea to carry an SMB

When I met Tony he was living in Mozambique, and when his visa ended he moved to Durban. Around that time we had decided we quite enjoyed each other’s company, so I flew up every second weekend to visit him. He was working at Calypso Dive and Adventure Centre at uShaka Marine World as an Instructor and Divemaster, so I tagged along on dives on the Saturday mornings I was in town. I was a fairly new diver at the time (it was September 2009).

It was the first time I’d come up to Durban to see him, and he had a student who had to do a deep dive on the Saturday morning. The boat was heading out to the Coopers Lighthouse wreck, a mysterious ship lying in 24-32 metres of water whose identity is not certain. Some people think it’s an old whaler, but there are several theories as to its origin. The wreck is thought to be about 100 years old and situated in line with the Cooper Lighthouse on the Bluff.

The rubber duck left the beach at 0700. The sea was looking quite bumpy, and the boat ride wasn’t great. I am not the best sailor, but as long as the boat is moving I’m fine. It’s about a 25 minute ride through shipping lanes, south of Durban harbour.

There was a howling current when we arrived at the site, and while we kitted up on the boat we drifted some way from the shot line hooked to the wreck. The sea was horrible – I alternated vomiting over the side (so embarrassing) with doing up clips on my BCD! Once we were ready, the skipper circled round and dropped us close to the shot line, but on the wrong side – so the current was taking us away from the line rather than towards it. I was with Tony, and his student – who was on the other side of the boat – had managed to get to the shot line and was holding on for dear life. In the current, his body was horizontal, like a flag in a strong wind.

Tony and I swam and swam, for what felt like an hour. We were swimming into the current at about 10 metres depth, but I think we were either standing still or moving backwards (it must have looked quite funny, if you were in that sort of mood). We could see Tony’s student, and we could see the shot line ahead of us, and then it just seemed to vanish. By that time the student had joined us, and the current had taken us out of sight of the line.

I wasn’t quite sure what we would do at that point, but Tony had a plan, which he explained to me later, on dry land. We descended to about 20 metres, and stayed there for about 20 minutes. The three of us were hanging in the blue ocean – no sign of the bottom – surrounded by shoals of fish. We could have surfaced immediately when we lost the shot line, but then we’d have had to spend the duration of the dive sitting on the boat, which was being tossed about like a cork. (I’d already demonstrated low tolerance for this kind of activity by chumming the local fish life while kitting up.) That’s if the boat had even found us – the skipper wouldn’t be expecting divers to surface after only ten minutes, and the conditions were not conducive to him spotting us as soon as we surfaced.

After about 20 minutes we began our ascent, doing a safety stop at 5 metres with an SMB deployed. When we reached the surface, the sea was mountainous. There was no sign of the boat, and even if it had been five metres away from us we’d have struggled to see it because of the size of the waves. Tony clipped our BCDs together so that we would drift more slowly (larger surface area to offer resistance to the current), and told me to keep my regulator in my mouth becuase the waves were so big. (It was on this dive that I discovered that you can vomit through a regulator… useful fact to keep in mind…)

Then we waited. The bright orange SMB stuck up between us, and in between gags I scanned the horizon (which was not very large, thanks to the waves) for the boat. The three of us floated there for 55 minutes before the boat found us. After being hauled aboard like a drowned rat I heaved over the side for good measure and then concentrated on my lollipop.

The skipper told Tony he’d been driving around looking for us, cursing Tony for not having an SMB deployed. We did – but the waves were so big that the boat was practically on top of us before it could be seen. If we hadn’t had an SMB, I very much doubt they would have found us without the aid of the NSRI.

Reels and surface marker buoy (SMB) — Different sized reels and surface marker buoys (SMB)

For the uninitiated, SMB stands for Surface Marker Buoy. They’re generally tubes of orange, red or yellow plastic, that you inflate by inserting your octo or regulator at the bottom, and purging it. It’s generally considered good practice to deploy an SMB at the safety stop when you’re on a boat dive – it warns other boats of your presence, signals that you’re ok, and gives your skipper an indication of where to come and fetch you.

If you get lost on the surface, a SMB is essential. You’re not very visible dressed from head to toe in black, and that orange tube might be the only difference between a very long time drifting on the surface, and a quick rescue. They fold up really small, and with a little practice are very straightforward to deploy. If you’re diving off a boat, or in an unfamiliar location, make sure you pack your SMB.