I haven’t often seen great schools of fish at Long Beach – maybe ten times on the sixty or so dives I’ve done there in the past 18 months. Seeing one is a wonderful experience, especially if the water is clean.
Kate and I did a dive at Long Beach with Jeremy, a Canadian tourist, in early November last year. The visibilty was magnificent, it was a sunny day and we stayed shallow. While we were quite close inshore we encountered a large school of strepies, who circled around us for some time. It was magical – the sunlight, their shiny bodies, and the good visibility combined to make this one of the best dives I’ve done at Long Beach.
“Strepie” means “little stripe” in Afrikaans, and refers to the horizontal yellow stripes that run along the body of this fish. They are also known as karanteen, and are plentiful on both coasts of South Africa. They’re popular with anglers (particularly as bait to catch other fish) and appear on the green list of good fish choices according to SASSI.
Strepies are mostly herbivorous and like inshore rocky areas with lots of marine vegetation – they are often seen at A Frame.
