Tony had three students who needed to finish their course, so we took them to Castor Rock. This is a large granite reef, a short distance from Long Beach in Simon’s Town where we were fetched by the boat. It’s just on the other side of the spectacular Roman Rock lighthouse.
Like Partridge Point, the Castor Rock area is a large maze of scattered boulders and pinnacles. Different marine life can be seen depending on the depth. This makes for an interesting dive from start to finish, because you can do your safety stop next to a shallow portion of the reef.
There are the usual sea cucumbers, urchins, feather stars and sea stars, but this site seems to be a particular haven for handsome striped pyjama sharks and catsharks. We saw six or eight pyjama sharks, some sleeping in crevices and others swimming around. A night light sea jelly greeted us as we started the dive, and bright orange sea fans are abundant.
The place is also nudibranch paradise – I found silvertip nudibranchs the size of hotdogs, and there were also gas flame nudibranchs in abundance.
The visibility was good, but the water in False Bay is still very green. We’re looking forward to winter diving!
Dive date: 2 April 2011
Air temperature: 24 degrees
Water temperature: 14 degrees
Maximum depth: 21.1 metres
Visibility: 10 metres
Dive duration: 30 minutes
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