Yesterday morning we met with some of our recently qualified Advanced Divers at Long Beach in Simon’s Town, and drove through to Castle Rock, where we had decided to dive.As it was still early in the morning (8 a.m.), there were very few scuba divers out and about. After kitting up alongside the road, we took a gentle stroll down the cliff path to the beach. It was low tide and there was much hilarity in getting into the water, but eventually we were all ready for the short surface swim before descending.
Our divers had just returned from a diving holiday in Madagascar where Ella (real name withheld!) had gotten so used to diving without a hoodie, that she totally forgot to pull hers up until just before we descended, when we reminded her that the water temperature was 14 and not 26 ˚C!!
When we reached the bottom, there was a bit of surge, and we spent the dive being gently washed to and fro on our swim around the main rocks. Water temperature stayed at a warm 14˚C (yes, there is such a thing!) and visibility ranged betwee
n 5m and 8m.We finned past Red Roman and were followed by a few of the more inquisitive ones; came across beautiful orange noble coral on the rock walls, huge orange wall sponges, brown and yellow elegant feather stars, beds of dark, banded brittle stars, purple, green and red Cape sea urchins, thousands of small red-chested sea cucumbers with their bright green feeding tentacles extended and
beautiful salmon gas flame and chocolate-chip nudibranchs. We discovered a huge octopus hiding under one of the overhangs and found a very large evil eye blassop resting on a rock. There was so much there, that it’s hard to remember everything that we saw!
After our dive, it was a short climb back up the cliff to our cars. The sun had come out and after we’d packed away our gear, we headed for a toasted sandwich and cuppacino at Dixies where we enjoyed the springtime sun and watched a huge flock of cormorants skimming over the surface of the water. Another great experience!
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