Tag: sunset

Newsletter: Weaker weather

Hi divers

Weekend dive plans

Shore and boat dives on Saturday and Sunday

Last Friday while diving out of Hout Bay we were visited by what felt like an overwhelming number – but was approximately fifty – whales. Most of them seemed intent on staying close to the boat and in fact a few rubbed themselves on the boat’s keel strip, which was slightly alarming. I stood dead still, wearing my life jacket, with the engines off and the boat stopped right next to the divers, hoping that they wouldn’t get too rowdy (the whales, not the divers). The divers had the amazing experience of whales at the safety stop.

Cetacean visitor in Hout Bay
Cetacean visitor in Hout Bay

We have been experimenting with early (6.00 am) and late (3.00 pm) launches for quick double tank dives to slot in as part of a well-planned work day. We’ve had lovely conditions and we’ve enjoyed seeing familiar places in a different light!

Hout Bay at sunset
Hout Bay at sunset

Dive conditions

We are starting to have fewer days of howling south easterly winds and it is a sign of good things to come, especially for those who prefer diving in False Bay. There is nothing spectacular in the weekend forecast: no howling wind, no huge swell and maybe a spot of rain. I think False Bay will be the place as the temperature of the Atlantic hit 19 degrees celsius today.

I have a backlog of students currently so we will try to shore dive and boat dive on both days. Once I have confirmed numbers I will text those on the “ready to dive” list. You know what to do!

DAN Divers Day

If you aren’t diving this coming Saturday afternoon (13 February), consider the DAN Divers Day at False Bay Underwater Club in Wynberg. It’ll be an afternoon of talks about dive safety and research, with local and international speakers. Register here – if you want to see the full program drop me an email and I’ll forward it to you.

regards

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

Diving is addictive!

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Bookshelf: South African Coasts

South African Coasts – Sylvia Earle (contributor) et al

South African Coasts
South African Coasts

South African Coasts is an initiative of Sustainable Seas Trust, one of my favourite local non profit conservation organisations. You can read about their mission on their website, but in brief, they aim to care for the marine environment by caring for the people that depend on it. In South Africa, this is an eminently sensible approach, given the degree of inequality and disadvantage that is characteristic of many coastal communities.

Over a period of months, a photography competition was held with categories for everyone from happy snappers like me to professionals like Rob Tarr (whose amazing work features prominently in the book). Photographs had to be taken on the coast, or underwater. The best photographs, as judged by a panel of eminent South African judges including Fiona Ayerst and Peter Chadwick, were selected to appear in this book.

The result is a beautiful, remarkably high quality (given that people like me were allowed to submit pictures for consideration!) volume that can be read as a love letter from the people of South Africa to our 3,000 kilometre coastline. The book is organised thematically, with short essays by South African conservationists and adventurers at the start of each section. The foreword was written by Sylvia Earle, and the book publicises the establishment of the first few Hope Spots along the South African coast.

One of my favourite aspects of the book is the pages which feature twenty or more pictures of waves, or sunrises, or sunsets, arranged in a grid. Each photographer is credited for their work, and the location at which the image was captured is recorded. This is a beautiful souvenir volume for all the contributors, a great gift for ocean-loving visitors to our country, and – for me – a compendium of ideas for new places on our coast that I have yet to visit.

You can get a copy of the book here.

Friday photo: Silvermine river

Silvermine river mouth on Fish Hoek Beach
Silvermine river mouth on Fish Hoek Beach

The Silvermine river drains onto Fish Hoek beach and into the sea, at the Clovelly end of the beach. Along its banks and nearby, pieces of metal from the wreck of the SS Kakapo (which is on Noordhoek beach) can be observed. You can see Tony’s drone hovering just above the river to the mid-left of the photo.

Night dive on the wreck of the Clan Stuart

Before the Clan Stuart night dive
Before the Clan Stuart night dive

This footage is five years old and very grainy, but has some sentimental value to me. Tony filmed it after a night dive on the SS Clan Stuart, which on Friday celebrated (?) 100 years aground in False Bay. It was his first night dive in Cape Town (might have been his first dive of any kind in Cape Town, but I’m not sure) and my first ever night dive. I was pretty freshly qualified as an Open Water diver but still had (have) a lot to learn.

[youtube=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MHzqArN_iM&w=540″]

I can see just enough of myself towards the end of the video to note that I have my mask pushed up on top of my head, which is stupid. Don’t do that, kids.

Friday photo: Clouds over the valley

Clouds over Fish Hoek valley
Clouds over Fish Hoek valley

Fish Hoek valley is a narrow saddle of low lying land approximately thirteen kilometres across, with False Bay on one side and the Atlantic ocean on the other. It looks beautiful from above, too. Here are some clouds at sunset, over the dunes at Fish Hoek beach.