The oil tanker Antipolis ran aground off Oudekraal during a July storm in 1977. She and the Romelia, which is wrecked near Sandy Bay, were both under tow by the tug Kiyo Maru No. 2 from Greece to be scrapped in Taiwan. The wreck lies pointing shoreward, a couple of hundred metres south of the 12 Apostles Hotel. She can be viewed from a vantage point above a storm water drain between the hotel entrance and a small parking area on the opposite (seaward) side of the road. Walk along the Armco barrier from the parking area, looking to your left (while also looking out for cyclists). The storm water pipe is about twenty metres from the parking area and is marked by a gap in the bushes through which the wreck can be seen.
There is also the option of climbing down an impossibly steep and slippery path onto the rocks adjacent to the wreck. The view from here is slightly better, but it is not a climb for the faint hearted.
She is now a beautiful dive site if you visit in clear, calm conditions. Most divers shore dive off the rocky beach in front of the wreck, after climbing over the traffic barrier and walking over the boulders on the shore.
There are some pictures of the tanker just after she grounded here and here (the comments are also worth reading). Her superstructure was cut off some time later for scrap. The entire shape of the wreck can be discerned on aerial images, as much of her lies just below the waterline.
If you’re interested in visible shipwrecks, check out my ebook Cape Town’s Visible Shipwrecks: A Guide for Explorers!
