I’m not sure why I haven’t written about Roman Rock before. I’ve actually done four dives on the main reef, the first in 2010. The pictures in this post are from more than one of the dives – I’ll group them together, and you’ll be able to see by the water colour which dive is which.
Part of the dive is along high walls that are reminiscent of Atlantis Reef, further south. There are deep dead-end passages in between the rocks, wide enough to swim through (or drive a car through), and the rippled sand looks like a white carpet or a runway. In the middle of nowhere you will come across a ladder; it’s been there since the first time I dived Roman Rock in 2010. Your guess is as good as mine.
Ladder in the middle of nowhere
Sand runway
Craig looks into a gully
Fish in a gully
Looking towards the top of the reef
Craig with the buoy line
Redbait at Roman Rock
The site is suitable for Open Water divers, as the maximum depth one can attain while staying adjacent to the reef is about 18 metres. There are several pinnacles and shallower plateaus that are suitable for deeper safety stops. It goes without saying that each diver must have a surface marker buoy – the site is a relatively short boat ride from False Bay Yacht Club, but offshore nonetheless and there may be boat traffic, depending on where the current takes you.
Tony and students on the surface over the wreck of the Brunswick
The Brunswick is a historical wooden shipwreck that lies a few hundred metres off the northern end of Long Beach in Simon’s Town, directly opposite the northern end of the white apartment buildings overlooking the Main Road. Like HNMS Bato, she is infrequently dived. Having lain underwater since 1805, she is heavily overgrown and much of her decking and hull is covered by sand. She used to be a shore entry (with a precipitous climb over the railway line), but in recent years a large number of boulders have been added as a breakwater between the ocean and the railway line, and climbing over in dive gear is no longer possible. For this reason we do the dive from the boat. Close to shore and in shallow water, the Brunswick is an ideal site to get used to boat diving.
Extensive field of wooden decking
The Brunswick was a British East Indiaman, which means she carried men and goods between Britain and the East Indies – (south)east Asia and India. She was carrying a cargo of cotton and sandalwood from China back to Britain when she was captured by some French vessels off Sri Lanka, and brought to Simon’s Bay. In September 1805 her anchor rope parted, and she ran aground during a south easterly gale. Most of her cargo was salvaged, as she lies in shallow (less than six metres deep) water.
Shot line on the sand
The boat from below
An encrusted iron knee
An iron knee in the wreckage
Planking on the Brunswick
Kelp grows on the wooden remains
Puffadder shyshark
Octopus hole
Hermit crabs swarm over the wood
Cape rock crab
Craig looking underneath
Bolt sticking out of the wreck
Tags on the wreck from a prior archaeological survey
Tags on the wreck from a prior archaeological survey
Starfish attached to a bolt
Copper bolt next to a rock lobster
Starfish and copper drift bolt
Pointy bolt
Some of the metal is worn smooth or recently uncovered
Drift bolts in the planking
Corroded iron driftbolt
Side view showing how thick the planks are
Much of the wreck lies under the sand
Another concreted metal item
Octopus surrounded by hermit crabs
Wooden remains from the Brunswick
Christo approaches the boat after the dive
We found the dive site to be similar to HNMS Bato, which was also a sturdily built wooden ship of similar vintage. The Brunswick was 1,200 tons, and her wreckage is spread out quite extensively. There are many thick, wooden planks, laid out as they would have been to form her decks, as well as much evidence of the bronze bolts that secured parts of the ship together. There are also many copper bolts, rivets and what could be small amounts of rolled up copper sheathing in evidence on the site.
Anemone among feather stars and papery burnupena
The highests parts of the wreck are covered with feather stars, anemones, sea cucumbers, and kelp. There are many octopus, and peering under the wreckage with a torch yielded a couple of very large pyjama catsharks. We were lucky to dive the site most recently on a day with lovely visibility, and the shallowness of the water means that there’s a lot of light penetration which improves things enormously.
The highest parts of the Brunswick wreck
Before diving this site, you should call the SA Navy Ops Room on 021 787 3818, to ask for permission and to tell them how long you’ll be. Same procedure as at Long Beach.
The South African coastal waters are under threat from a number of directions. Resource extraction (mining, oil drilling and the like) carries a danger of catastrophic pollution and spills, and the craft used for these activities are often vectors for alien species. Aquaculture, which may seem like a good idea, also threatens to introduce alien species to sensitive areas of the coast, and generates huge amounts of pollution too. Municipal failures such as sewerage spills, plastic pollution, and most of all fishing are the other big threats to the integrity of the ocean habitat. A future threat to our coastline is phosphate mining (the phosphate would be shipped to China and Australia to rehabilitate farmland), and demersal trawl fishing is a constant threat to large areas of the coastline.
The scale of fishing in South Africa’s coastal waters is terrifying: 800,000 tonnes of marine life is harvested annually. About 300 species (including invertebrates such as abalone and rock lobster) are targeted, but about 550 are impacted, many as bycatch. To put that in perspective, there are about 2,200 fish species found around our coastline.
South Africa has a fairly extensive network of MPAs, covering 19% of our coastline. 9% of the coast falls within no-take zones, where nothing is to be removed by fishing or other methods. If one rather measures the extent of our MPAs as a percentage of our exclusive economic zone (EEZ) which extends 200 nautical miles off our coastline, they cover only 0.4% of South Africa’s territorial waters, and only 0.16% of our EEZ is a no-take zone. The west coast of the country is largely neglected, but other than that the MPAs are distributed quite evenly around the coastline.
Marine protected areas protect habitats and ecosystems, as well as commercially important fish populations. They do this by preventing fishing in nursery areas and locations where spawning takes place, as well as by preserving the genetic structure of the population. They allow research into the effects of fishing to take place by providing areas that aren’t fished to compare with areas that are. They also enable non-consumptive activities such as scuba diving, whale, seal and seabird viewing, and coastal tourism to take place.
One interesting aspect of MPAs that Prof Attwood pointed out is that they are used for crowd control. Anyone who has seen the number of vehicles on the beach at Sodwana during high season might think that this is terribly destructive and not what an MPA should look like. What is in fact taking place is that 95% of the people are being funnelled through 5% of the MPA, constraining the damage done by human activities to a very restricted area.
Redundancy in Marine Protected Areas, as in engineering, is a good thing. If a species exists in more than one MPA, it is less vulnerable to habitat destruction and catastrophic events such as oil spills. One of Prof Attwood’s students has done work on whether all our marine species are adequately protected (i.e. appear in at least one, and preferably more than one MPA). The results are sobering – of the 225 shore species surveyed, 26% of them do not live in any of our MPAs and 85 species only exist in one MPA. Of the inshore species surveyed (230), 33% are not in an MPA. 25% of the 145 estuarine species surveyed do not live in any of our MPAs, and of the 446 species found out in up to 500 metres on the deep continental shelf, 78% of them are not in an MPA. Only two MPAs (Pondoland is one) cover any of these species at all!
Prof Attwood then gave us a rapid tour through the important scientific studies that have been conducted in South African MPAS. It was only in the last 20 years that the scientific community shook off its skepticism that Marine Protected Areas – underwater, without fences – would actually work. The results are very heartening, and numerous studies have confirmed MPAs efficacy. Fish are more abundant, and populations of heavily exploited fish recover remarkably rapidly and thoroughly when fishing pressure is removed. I first read about this in Charles Clover’s book End of the Line, where he describes an MPA in New Zealand, at Goat Island, and what a delight and amazement it is to the locals and tourists who get to encounter abundant fish in knee deep water.
Giant roman at Photographer’s Reef
Roman inside the Goukamma MPA (8 x 1 nautical miles in dimension, along the coast near Knysna) are on average larger, and change sex later. Roman change from female to male at a certain age, but fishing pressure outside the MPA has forced a physiological change in the fish: their sex-change takes place at age 8 instead of the usual 10 years. The roman inside the MPA are thinner and in poorer condition than those outside the reserve, where fewer fish means less competition for prey. This is at first blush a strange result, but makes complete sense given the higher density of fish inside the MPA – and perhaps these “thinner” roman are fit, compared to the chubby, overfed ones outside the MPA! Prof Attwood pointed out that MPAs are not good for all species – the example here is the crinoids (feather stars) that romans love to eat. Inside the MPA there is a significantly lower density of feather stars than outside, where fewer roman prey on them.
The talk concluded with a map showing analysis of where South Africa’s next MPA should be located. It’s possible to identify critical locations where species that are not widespread live or breed, and these are the areas that should be protected. Tony and I both found this talk extremely inspiring and encouraging, as Prof Attwood does not do the kind of science that gets shelved somewhere and forgotten about. The results of his work are useful in policy making, legislation and decisions about the protection and use of our common marine resource, and he is active and willing to participate in that aspect of marine conservation.
Positioned at the end of the Twelve Apostles mountain range (and thusly named), 13th Apostle reef is a distinct mass of granite boulders surrounded by a sandy bottom. Waves have long been observed to break here in bad weather, but the reef was only dived for the first time late in 2010. It’s quite a long (13.3km) boat ride from Hout Bay, near Llandudno.
Hydroids, urchins and soft corals
We visited it on a day when surface conditions were somewhat choppy despite the lack of wind, and the boat ride there felt endless. And wet. Visibility, however, was stellar – when my buddy failed to arrive at the bottom I was forced to resurface, and on my way back down I could see Tony and Vanessa 15 metres below me. They, in turn, could see my legs and the boat while I was on the surface.
Tony & Vanessa, seen from near the surface
The top of the reef is between 6 and 10 metres deep, punctuated by deep cracks. There are in fact a couple of swimthroughs and overhangs, one of which forms a very large cavern. The reef itself has kelp growing on top and down to at least 15 metres which, as Peter Southwoodpoints out, implies that light often penetrates to that depth, in turn implying frequent good visibility at the site. There is the usual covering of urchins, sea cucumbers, sea squirts, sponges, soft corals and hydroids.
Alikreukel (I think)
Klipfish hiding in red seaweed
Super klipfish
Cauliflower soft coral
Blue gas flame nudibranch
Red fanworms
Hydroids cover the rocks in places
Basket star tentacles
Scores of fry
Tony found me a beautiful basket star, and I discovered a brooding cushion star – an unusual sea star that makes me crave refined carbohydrates. We also saw large numbers of west coast rock lobster and schools of hottentot. Parts of the reef were covered by dense schools of baby fish – the Atlantic is very fecund.
Basket star
This reef has a distinct edge, and while it’s quite large, if you land on it you probably won’t get lost. It feels quite far out to sea (it isn’t, really) and it’s essential (as with all Cape Town boat diving) to have an SMB to deploy before you surface. Tony in fact sent his up with me when I ascended early in the dive to look for my buddy. I descended on the line and found him and Vanessa at the bottom.
On Sunday 11 March, since the Cape Argus Pick n Pay Cycle Tour was going to prohibit access to basically the entire peninsula, we decided to take an expedition out to the eastern side of False Bay to do a boat dive with Indigo Scuba, run by Kate and Deon Jonker. We’ve been meaning to do this for ages and ages, so we were very glad to finally get ourselves over there! The southeaster (which had blown strongly in the few days prior to the 11th) actually cleans up the eastern side of False Bay while it messes up the western side, or at least has some positive effect on visibility. So while we are diving in the Atlantic during the summer, Indigo launches out of Gordon’s Bay and explores local dive sites such as Pinnacles, Cow and Calf, and the Steenbras River Mouth.
Deon Jonker skippering the Indigo Scuba dive boat
We met at Indigo Scuba in the morning, loaded up the boat, and then drove the 5 minutes to Harbour Island in Gordon’s Bay, from where we launched. It’s an extremely civilised launch site and overall experience… The foul-mouthed snoek slinging fishermen crowding Miller’s Point seemed like a bad dream!
West coast rock lobster buddy pair
It’s about 11 kilometres from Harbour Island to Steenbras Deep, and one has the feeling of being quite far out to sea – although we could see the mountains surrounding False Bay on both sides of us. The wind was stronger than the weather man had predicted, giving rise to some quite serious wind chop and a bumpy and wet boat ride. When we arrived at the reef we could see that there was more wave action on top of the pinnacles than in the deeper water surrounding them. Deon dropped a shot on one of the two pinnacles that comprise the reef (the top of the pinnacle we dropped onto is at about 18 metres, with the sand at about 30 metres). A murky descent (standard for False Bay in summer!) down the shot line led us to the top of the pinnacle, where visibility was only about 2 metres and it was very green.
Bull klipfish
As we ventured slightly deeper we encountered some invigorating (ahem!) thermoclines (one of them was actually visible as a haze in the water) and improved visibility. There was quite a strong current in places, and lots of surge.
Yellow choirboys ascidian
Orange gas flame nudibranch
Frilled nudibranch
Congregation of frilled nudibranchs
Granular sea star
Silvertip nudibranch
There are many similarities between the reefs we dive on the western side of False Bay, but the overall pattern of the sea life was subtly different. The fish seemed far less skittish than their compatriots to the west, and happily swam within a few tens of centimetres from my mask. Nudibranchs abound, and close inspection of the corals covering the rocks is well rewarded. There seemed to be fewer sea cucumbers, and feather stars were not quite as dominant as they are in some of the other parts of False Bay. The corals, sponges and sea fans are beautiful and very numerous.
The sand around the reef is very coarse and full of shells, and the reef itself abounds with cracks, gullies, small pointy pinnacles, and walls that can be traversed at a variety of depths. The gullies appear to be much beloved by west coast rock lobster, and shysharks were quite common too.
Puffadder shyshark and some lobster friends
West coast rock lobster
Large west coast rock lobster
This reef is not in a marine protected area (MPA) – none of the eastern False Bay dive sites are. Kate, who regularly dives both sides of the bay, says she can see a distinct difference in the number of fish that they see on “their” side of the bay compared to the western side. So even if I am quite cynical about the competence of the administration and will to police the MPAs, clearly they are having some effect!
Weather, hmm, this time of year it is a tussle between the Atlantic and False Bay with the Atlantic winning more often than not. We decided not to dive last Saturday as I felt the conditions unsuitable for newish divers. Those that braved these conditions (see the picture below) were rewarded with 8 degree water and mind blowing viz.
Fun times on the boat out of Hout Bay harbour
As I write this newsletter I can see outside that the southeaster is hammering the bay and despite the wind dropping off tomorrow I don’t think False Bay will be very clean for the next few days. This weekend’s conditions are once again sending the boats and divers to the Atlantic. Saturday does not look good but Sunday seems at this point to be much better. Grant will launch on Sunday from Hout Bay. Please contact him directly to book… I will be spending most of the weekend in the pool with new students!
Feather star finds a home
We did dive False Bay this last week before the southeaster became problematic. On Sunday we were at Long Beach, and later in the week I dived with tourists primarily and had 6 metre visibility with 17 degree water. We also dived at A Frame and saw gully sharks in the swim-through. I only saw two, but there have been up to 8 seen at once so it appears they have made it their home.
Burrowing anemone at Long Beach
Many people are on leave, have odd days off and want to get some diving done. This time of the year also sees an influx of tourists so planning and pre-booking is essential. The dive schools are also all busy so getting on a boat can be difficult as Cape Town has far fewer dive boats than number of dive schools. If you have a few days off in the next couple of weeks try and plan ahead, and if I text or email you about a boat dive, let me know chop-chop if you’re in.
The Learn to Dive Today website has had a bit of a revamp – we are currently busy switching over from the old to the new one, which can take up to 48 hours as the new hosting information propagates across the internet, so service may be unpredictable. If you do go check it out, please let me know if you find any broken links or typos!
P.S. For gift ideas for the scuba diver in your life, or as a list of hints to give to your mother, girlfriend, granny or second cousin to assist them in buying you a present, you can check out our Christmas gift guide. Also works for Hanukkah!
Caravan Reef is an infrequently-dived, simply enormous granite reef that lies very close to the slipway at Miller’s Point. Its northern reaches are close to the SAS Pietermaritzburg, but as can be seen from the map on its wikivoyage page the reef extends far south and has five distinct regions.
Peter Southwood swimming a shallow contour at Caravan Reef (south)
The one we dived (and the only one I’ve visited so far) is Caravan South, which is visible on the right of the map. The top of the reef is shallow, 4-5 metres, and after descending onto the pinnacle we dropped off the southern side. The southern side of the pinnacle, which runs almost west to east, is characterised by a vertical wall that drops down to about 20 metres on the sand. I love vertical reef structures – much easier to take pictures of something next to you rather than below you, but it does require some co-ordination and consideration among the divers to avoid getting in each other’s way.
The wall at Caravan South
The reef extending up towards the surface
The rocks at the south eastern edge of the reef
Narrow ridges of rock around the edge of the main reef
One of the sharp-edged slivers of rock beneath the reef
A flagellar sea fan in a narrow gully
The top of the Caravan South pinnacle
The reef drops off steeply
The upper edge of the pinnacle
Another of the rocks at the base of the reef
Gullies on the eastern side of the reef extend to the sand
The reef is heavily overgrown with sea fans, bryzoans, corals and invertebrate life
A roman shelters in a narrow gully
Ascending towards the top of the pinnacle
The top of the pinnacle is overgrown with kelp
A gully leading back up to the top of the pinnacle
Goot and I (after a false start) swam east along the wall at about 15 metres depth, with the current, which was (to put it mildly) howling. At the corner of the reef is a mass of jumbled boulders with small overhangs. Some of these rocks have quite sharp edges, like ancient tree roots or massive parmesan shavings, so there is a lot of surface area for life to grow on relative to the volume of the rock.
Compass sea jelly at Caravan Reef
A compass sea jelly battling the current around the reef
A compass sea jelly next to the wall
Compass sea jelly
Compass sea jellies fighting the current
A root-mouthed sea jelly
Goot inspects the root-mouthed sea jelly
Compass sea jellies passing the reef
A small jelly on the top of the pinnacle
Compass sea jellies and fish in the current at Caravan Reef
As we rounded the corner we encountered even more current – it was running roughly north to south, and coming around the reef, hence our difficulty with it whichever way we turned! Large numbers of compass sea jellies were being blown along by the current. We also saw an enormous root-mouthed sea jelly, with a small compass jelly caught in its tentacles (by accident – these creatures eat plankton). The false plum anemones living on the side of the reef were enjoying an unexpected bounty of jellyfish as some of the compass sea jellies had gotten caught on the side of the reef and were being devoured by opportunistic anemones.
False plum anemone slurps in a compass sea jelly
False plum anemone
Strawberry sea anemones and sea cucumbers
Retracted false plum anemone
False plum anemone
A sunburst soft coral, with most of its polyps retracted
A false plum anemone lunches a compass sea jelly that got caught on the reef
Knobbly anemone
Knobbly anemone with two urchin assistants
Knobbly anemone
Knobbly anemone
Red sea star cuddling up to a false plum anemone
False plum anemone
The eastern edge of the reef has several cracks in it, mostly quite small, but we did see a few large roman taking advantage of the shelter. A small school of hottentot was surfing current on the eastern edge too, enjoying the snacks that it brought directly into their path. We swam into the current a short distance, became distracted by the root-mouthed jelly, and followed it back along the reef for a while. We then ascended to about 10 metres and drifted back down the reef with the current to the corner. By that stage we were getting low on air, so it was time to ascend to the top of the pinnacle. The surface current washed us off the pinnacle in short order, so we inflated an SMB and waited for the boat!
Blue gas flame nudibranch
Silvertip nudibranch
Silvertip nudibranch
Blue gas flame nudibranch
Blue gas flame nudibranch
Blue gas flame nudibranch
Looking down the wall to the sand
My favourite feature of the southern part of the reef is the vertical wall to the south, which extends along the eastern side as well to some degree. I’d like to explore the northern and western areas of this part of Caravan Reef, but the current prevented us from making much progress into those areas. Peter Southwood is busy mapping this reef, so contours should be added to the existing map on Wikitravel. I think that the current on the day we dived the reef had a lot to do with the extremely strong northwesterly wind that had been blowing for a day or two and dropped slightly on the day of our dive, but I’m not complaining – the visibility was stellar, almost top to bottom!
Fish feeding on the side of the reef
Dive date: 23 October 2011
Air temperature: 24 degrees
Water temperature: 12 degrees
Maximum depth: 18.0 metres
Visibility: 15 metres
Dive duration: 33 minutes
Sea fans and invertebrates on the wall
Orange wall sponge
Red fanworm
Sinuous sea fan near the bottom of the reef
Red chested sea cucumbers
Sea fans, featherstars and urchins on the rocky bottom
A heavily encrusted palmate sea fan
Juvenile sea fans
Red sea star holding on tight
Abundant invertebrate life on the lower reef
Coral and sea fans
Catshark egg case
Sinuous sea fan
Cape rock crab
A reticulated sea star resting on some multicoloured sea fans and false coral
A wedding at Windmill, with divers emerging (James Bond-like) from the sea in the background
It’s actually ridiculous that I haven’t written anything about Windmill Beach yet for the blog. It’s probably one of the three most popular shore entry sites on the western side of False Bay, and it’s absolutely beautiful. The beach is also a popular wedding venue – take care not to spoil the photos as you tramp past in your scuba gear!
Blue gas flame nudibranch
Right next to Boulders Beach, Windmill shares the same type of topography: large, rounded boulders sheltering small inlets. On a calm day with no large swell, it’s paradise. (When there is a big swell, it’s a washing machine and not worth the walk down to the beach.) A huge variety of life colonises the granite boulders around the beach, and the patient observer will find other interesting creatures on the coarse, sandy bottom between the rocks.
A diver in the eastern cove at Windmill
On the surface at Windmill
Exiting the water after a dive, in the east cove
The beautiful tree at the bottom of the path to the beach
Windmill Beach
View of the dodgy public loo on site, from just above the beach
Negotiating the path back to the car
The path leading down from the parking area to the beach
Getting ready at the parking area
The entrance to the beach, seen from the parking area
Parking is at the end of Links Crescent, so-called because it runs behind the golf course in Simon’s Town. There’s often a man in a penguin suit standing on the corner of Bellevue Road, which is where you must turn left off the main road. Links Crescent is the first road to your right after the golf course. On weekends the site teems with divers, but during the week it’s advisable to organise yourself a car guard (Happy Valley Homeless Shelter can often oblige). The parking is right next to the golf course – be warned! There are public loos on the way down to the beach, but optimistically the most they can be said to provide in terms of amenities is a modicum of privacy. The well-maintained loos at Long Beach have spoiled us in this regard!
Common feather star
Setting off in good visibility at Windmill
Tony, James and Linda at Windmill
Doing skills at Windmill
Interesting gaps between the rocks and in the kelp are fun for divers!
James swims over broken kelp
Linda traverses the seafloor
The two coves are very sheltered. The northernmost (left hand) one is very shallow and slopes very gently; the eastern (right hand) cove is the more popular entry point, and is ideal for skills training on the sandy bottom, as it is very protected and one can quickly get 1.5 to 2 metres of depth. There is plenty to see on the rocks around the edge of the cove, and in adverse conditions an entire dive could be conducted without leaving the protection of the rocks. At least one very large octopus lives in the shallows on the right hand side of the cove.
A red sea star… count the legs!
Kelp forest at Windmill Beach
Kelp forest at Windmill
Healthy kelp forests with invertebrates beneath at Windmill
Catshark egg case at Windmill
There is abundant life at the foot of the kelp stipes
Sea fan nursery at Windmill
Urchins and a sea star cling to a rock at Windmill
Baby sea fans at Windmill
There is ample place to hide in the kelp
The maximum depth you’ll find at Windmill is about 8 metres – getting deeper requires quite a swim offshore. I think it involves more than a little luck as well as some navigation skils, but it’s possible to enter at the eastern cove, swim out and around the rocks, and exit at the northern cove. There is a narrow gap between the rocks (shortcut into the northern cove) that is terrible when there’s a swell – the first time I dived Windmill, with Fritz (just after I started diving) we got washed through it at a precipitous speed. If you skip the gap, knowing when to turn west and find the seaward entrance of the north cove is also quite an art, and a “surface to look around” may be required.
Blue gas flame nudibranch
All that said, Windmill is an exceptionally attractive dive site. There are several passages to swim through, and the southern right whales that visit False Bay every year seem to like this spot. I have heard more than one story of divers encountering a jubilant whale in the shallow (for a whale) water. If you are one of the lucky ones who does, remember that these whales are very, very large in comparison to you, and an accidental sideswipe with its tail could well catapault you into next week.
Box sea jellies at Windmill Beach
A super klipfish at Windmill
Alikreukel on the sand
Super klipfish at rest
A hottentot with two fish lice on its head
Cushion star on some Stephens’ codium
Climbing alikreukel
A pinch-lipped marginella on some Stephens’ codium
Cape rock crab
Alikreukel on kelp
A Cape rock crab on the move
A klipfish perches on a rock
A large super klipfish at Windmill
A Cape rock crab in the kelp
When we dived there recently I found a white seacatfish, but wasn’t fast enough to photograph him as he disappeared into a crack in the rocks. There are lots of klipfish, gorgeous nudibranchs, and a wealth of other invertebrate life. You won’t find a single abalone (but lots of shells) – I think they’ve been poached out. The place is crawling with alikreukel. Fortunately at Photographer’s Reef, a 400 metre swim directly out into the bay from Windmill, there is a reasonably large and healthy population. Like A Frame, we saw many false plum anemones, and the Cape rock crab population at Windmill seems particularly healthy. If you want to see kelp forests, the ones at Windmill are particularly alluring, sloping gently upwards with a vivid scattering of urchins and anemones on the rocks beneath.
A large false plum anemone in the shallow water at Windmill
As the seasons change from spring to summer so do the winds, the southeaster gets more air time than most winds and diving starts the annual pilgrimage to the Atlantic. It becomes a little harder to predict the diving conditions for the next several months and my weather prediction success rate will plummet from around 10% to zero!!!
Knobbly anemone on Photographer’s Reef
Local diving is also entering its silly season with many dive operators vying for top spot as being the one that can post the most rubbish on facebook in one week. In an effort to appear popular and busy some claim to have dived in “flat calm with 10m viz” having not even left the couch at home. On a good day (yesterday, for example) the viz is claimed to be 2 metres, 7 metres and 10 metres within minutes of one another by different operators. While this provides incomparable amusement for those of us who watch the weather ourselves, divers who do not consult Magic Seaweedor a similar site for information on wind and swells will be very disappointed!
Keren ascending after her first boat dive as a qualified Open Water diver
Last weekend
Fun in the sun at the ScubaPro day
The ScubaPro day was a success with around 140 people enjoying boat dives at R100 each. The False Bay Yacht Club is a nice venue and often the only place to dive students when the southeaster gets up and humming. There were four launches by five boats so a lot of good diving was had. We had an early dive to Photographer’s Reef with good visibility and the last launch to Roman Rock had a slight drop of but the diving was great.
Blue gas flame nudibranch at Roman Rock
On Monday I dived a fairly new dive site called Atlantis, twin pinnacles just north of Smitswinkel Bay that start at 6-7 metres and drop off to 34 metres on the sand. This site had the biggest schools of fish I had ever seen in Cape Town, and then went to Pyramid Rock to dive with the cowsharks. We saw lots of sharks and a small spotted gully shark. I was happy to see that an injured shark we spotted earlier this year had recovered well and was looking far more healthy. The shark has lost a huge portion of its tail fin so it is quite distinct. The snoek boats are all out fishing so two more sharks have hooks trailing in their mouths as they apparently chase the fishing boats taking the catch of the fishermen’s lines.
These two dives were done off a hard boat called Shark Explorer – I was Divemastering for a company called Shark Explorers who do various kinds of shark-focused diving including shark cage diving in False Bay. It was a backward roll and a half!
Nils negotiates a gap in the rocks at Photographer’s Reef (gives an idea of the visibility, too)
Tuesday I spent in the pool with Cecil and his double tank configuration as he worked through the training drills for valve shut down and other skills in preparation for his foray into the world of cave diving. His skills practice went well despite me doing my level best to stress him by shutting valves, intentionally tangling him in line, flooding his mask and a few other tests of his patience!
Compass sea jelly at Roman Rock
This weekend
The wind and swell arrive tomorrow, 4.5 metres of swell and a strong southeaster. This will spoil Saturday for sure and it is unlikely Sunday will survive unscathed. There is less swell and wind on Sunday but the visibility will have dropped. I will dive on Sunday, a shore entry at the best looking sight so text me if you want to dive, I just can’t be sure of the conditions as yet.
Upcoming events
Clare and I plan to attend a talk at OMSAC in Pinelands about the WWF’s SASSI program (encouraging and empowering consumers to eat responsibly fished, non-endangered seafood) on Thursday 20 October. The event invitation is here. If you care about the sea and like to eat fish, this will be an informative and useful evening. Plus we’re looking forward to checking out OMSAC – we’ve attended several of theirevents but never visited the clubhouse.
The MFV Orotava was part of the I&J fishing fleet, and was scuttled in Smitswinkel Bay in 1983. She lies alongside the SAS Transvaal, and within a few hundred metres of the SAS Good Hope, the MV Rockeater, and the MFV Princess Elizabeth. She is a steel trawler, 50 metres long and just over 9 metres wide. It’s possible to see the entire wreck in a single dive; she rests on the sand at 34 metres, leaning at a slight angle, and the top of her superstructure is at about 23 metres.
Railings on the Orotava
Hatches on deck
The ship is tilted at a slight angle
Encrusted wreckage, looking like a garden
Metal on deck
Tony framed by an arch
Gaps showing the interior of the hull
Heavily overgrown railings
The bow of the MFV Orotava
We dived this wreck two weekends in a row. The first time we had very good visibility, and to me the ship looked as though it was festooned with flowers. There are lots of steel pipes and other bits sticking up, with arches and door frames and other framing devices that make for wonderful photographic opportunities. The wreck is overgrown with feather stars, sea fans, soft corals, and other invertebrate life.
A masked crab evades my flash on the sand
A speckled klipfish
Puffadder shyshark taking a nap
Walking anemone
Walking anemone
Most notable to me was the presence of multiple frilled nudibranchs. I saw these for the first time on the MV Rockeater, also in Smitswinkel Bay, but the profusion of these beautiful little creatures on the Orotava has to be seen to be believed. I probably photographed 20 unique specimens on each dive, whilst swimming over several others (with regret).
A gathering of frilled nudibranchs
Frilled nudibranch
Frilled nudibranch
Frilled nudibranch
Frilled nudibranch
Two frilled nudibranchs on some mussels
Orange gas flame nudibranch
Frilled nudibranch
Orange gas flame nudibranch
Frilled nudibranchs
The interior of the wreck is small, tight and not really suitable for penetration. The next two photos are horrible and have no artistic merit whatsoever (even by my standards), but they are of a hole in the deck. There are vertical steel plates visibile inside the hole that were moving several feet back and forth with each wash of the surge – you can see them in two distinct positions in the pictures. Take care.
Not much decking remains
Moving metal parts inside the Orotava
Moving metal parts inside the Orotava
Dive date: 27 August 2011
Air temperature: 17 degrees
Water temperature: 14 degrees
Maximum depth: 30.3 metres
Visibility: 12 metres
Dive duration: 33 minutes
Close up of the bow railings
Air intake on the deck of the Orotava
Arched steel on the side of the Orotava
Side of the MFV Orotava
A ladder from the upper to a lower deck
A large winch drum on deck
View down off the deck
We returned to the MFV Orotava the following week to look for a GoPro camera lost by one of the other divers on the boat the previous week. No luck finding it, unfortunately!
Tiny basket star on a sea fan
On our second visit to the wreck, Tony was below me on the sand with a student doing skills for a Deep Specialty course. I hung about near the top of the hull, trying to take shelter from the surge, which was particularly violent that day. Next to me, on some small sea fans, were two baby basket stars. This is the first time I’ve seen them in False Bay (I think they are found at several of the deeper reefs towards the southern end of the bay, such as Rocky Bank) – we usually see them on deep Atlantic dives such as on Klein Tafelberg Reef.
Baby basket star
I thought the Orotava was a very pretty wreck, and look forward to returning there. Anywhere I can see my frilled nudibranchs or basket stars (!!!!) is a happy place for me.
Dive date: 4 September 2011
Air temperature: 15 degrees
Water temperature: 14 degrees
Maximum depth: 32.9 metres
Visibility: 5 metres
Dive duration: 36 minutes
Swimming worm at the safety stop (species ID pending!)
These two heavily-laden divers were busy with an advanced Nitrox course
