Cape Town boasts many magnificent features for divers to explore. There are beautiful dive sites that can be reached by boat, but unlike many other places around the world, that’s not the only way to dive in Cape Town. Our shore dives are something spectacular in their own right.
Kelp Forests
Kelp aligns the shore at various places around False Bay, granting easy access to these majestic underwater forests. Many sea creatures call these forests their home and others often enjoy taking a quick trip through. Among the sea life you can find here include the cow sharks, shy sharks, pyjama sharks, penguins, stingrays, octopus, fish species like Harder, Strepies and Hottentots, to name a few.
Kelp Forest at Shark Alley.
There’s always a sense of mystery when entering these underwater jungles. You never know what awaits on the other side of the kelp curtains. Even if for some reason the sea life happens to be shy, there will still be plenty to experience. All you have to do is look up through the kelp “trees” looming above with the light streaming through and any ocean enthusiast will fall in love all over again.
Sea Life
It’s funny how it works, the more you dive at deeper dive sites, the more you become convinced that this is the only place where you can really see anything. But this is simply not the case! At least, not around False Bay anyway.
Multicoloured Sea Fan (Acabaria rubra) covering the reef.
Apart from what can be found within the kelp, the reefs that can be reached from the shore are also spectacular. The reefs are colourful, vibrant and full of life. This is in large part thanks to the diatoms plankton which gives our water the brown-green coloration, these are primary producers and all other life relies on them. Cape Town is famous for its macro life, so if you’re into photographing smaller critters, this is the place to go diving!
Nudibranch and Sea Slug spotting is a favourite among Cape Town Divers. According to iNaturalist, “There are over 75 species in False Bay and the Peninsula alone, and astute divers may be able to see 20 species on one dive in False Bay.”
A beautiful Cape Dorid (Hypselodoris capensis)
But be careful not to keep your face down to the reef for too long, otherwise, you might miss the playful Cape Fur seals diving down. They are very inquisitive animals and love being around scuba divers and seeing what they’re up to.
Wreck Diving
There are a few wrecks that you can reach from the shore, some of the most prominent being Clan Stuart, Brunswick and the HNMS Bato.
Wreck of the Clan Stuart. Photo by Jan de Bruyn
Clan Stuart is an amazing dive site that can be reached through a shore entry. Clan Stuart is a British Turret Steamer that carried coal and lost its anchor, sinking in 1914. It’s easy to spot this dive site, as the top of the wreck can be spotted from the surface. Large parts of the wreck are covered in kelp and weeds. There are various species of nudibranchs as well as Rippled klipfish, Pipefish, and Sandgobies in and around the wreck. According to The Dive Spots of Southern Africa, Brittle Starfish, Stephensons’s sea cucumbers, and Cape urchins are in abundance at Clan Stuart.
Wreck of the Clan Stuart sticking out of the water. Photo by Jan de Bruyn
Although a lot of the Brunswick is buried under the sand, a large part of the wooden shipwreck can still be dived. The Brunswick was an armed merchant ship transporting goods between the East Indies and Britain. The vessel was captured and brought to Simon’s Town as a prize of war. Later, in 1805, it ran aground after losing three anchors. When diving the Brunswick you can still find the starboard side standing proudly in the sand and the port side scattered and buried about.
HNMS Bato was a Dutch warship that was used as a floating battery in Simon’s Town. In 1806, it was finally set on fire and sunk, on the exact same day that the Battle of Blaauwberg began. The wreck is overgrown with seaweed and kelp, but the overall marine life is abundant, with different varieties of invertebrates and fish appearing along the site.
In conclusion
It’s so easy to go on a spontaneous shore dive and we are lucky to have these wonderful dive sites at our fingertips on the Eastern and Western sides of False Bay. You would surely be missing out if you don’t explore them when visiting Cape Town. And if you’re a resident diver here, what are you waiting for? Nothing’s stopping you from donning your gear and going on a quick adventure through the kelp or historical wrecks.
Katia Theron
Images supplied by @sealife_madeleinwolf
www.madeleinwolf.co.za
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