Low Visibility Diving – A good reason to do your Advanced Scuba Diver’s Course!

You’ve mastered the basics of scuba diving during your Scuba Diver course and are qualified to dive to depths of 18 metres. You’ve done enough dives to feel comfortable in the water and are eager to experience more.

Now’s the time to do your Advanced Scuba Diver’s course! Whilst training to become an Advanced Scuba Diver you will be learn the required skills to enjoy even more exciting types of diving: wreck diving, night diving, deeper diving and diving in low visibility.

Being well trained in low visibility diving will enable you to feel comfortable in less than perfect conditions, increasing the number of opportunities for you to go diving.

During a low visibility dive, you will learn to appreciate the smaller things. You won’t be distracted by what is going on in the distance and you concentrate on what is close by. Once you start looking, you will see things you’ve never noticed before – beautifully coloured nudibranch hiding amongst the growth on rocks, tiny crabs, baby’s toes, beautiful sea anemones, colourful soft sponges, smaller fish hiding in crevasses – you just have to look and the beauty of the oceans opens up to you in a way you couldn’t imagine!

Diving in low visibility is relaxing. Take it slow – from your descent (descend feet first and watch your dive buddy so that you don’t lose sight of each other). As you spend more time concentrating on what’s in front of you – you’ll slow down and enjoy a more relaxed dive.

You’ll learn to become a better diver. You have to be more alert and make sure you know where your dive leader is and what your buddy is up to. You’ll also need to concentrate on your orientation and know how to use your compass correctly to ensure you are going in the right direction at all times. You won’t want to have to surface in an area where there is heavy boat traffic just to find out where you are... That’s where those navigation skills you learned during your Advanced Course come in handy! It’s also always advisable to dive a site you know well when the visibility is not great and to plan your dive and dive your plan!

You’ll also learn to become a better dive buddy. You’ll need to understand each other’s signals and will have to communicate more. When diving in low visibility conditions, it is important that buddies stick together – not swimming too far ahead when leading or too far behind if following. Who wants to call short a dive due to a lost buddy? Take a torch; use bright coloured fins or have reflective tape attached to your BC – it will make you more visible to your buddy.

Contact us today and book to do your Advanced Scuba Diver Course! An even greater world awaits you!

The Low Down on Cape Town Diving

The waters of Cape Town are rich in marine life and offer year round diving for scuba divers of every level and preference – from haunting wrecks steeped in cultural history to glittering kelp forests that play host to a myriad colourful creatures.

Cape Town diving takes place along the Western coast of the Cape Peninsula, referred to by the locals as “The Atlantic Side”; the Western side of False Bay (Simon’s Town area) and the Eastern side of False Bay (Gordon’s Bay to Rooi Els).

Although it is believed that the Atlantic and Indian oceans meet at Cape Point (they actually meet further East at Cape Aghulus), there is a distinct difference in temperature between the waters of the Western coast of the Peninsula and those of False Bay. This is due to the cold Benguela current which makes its way north from the Antarctic, up the West coast of Africa. The result is that the waters along the Western coast of the Peninsula have an average temperature of between 8 °C and 12 °C. False Bay is protected from the Benguela current and temperatures here range from 12 °C in winter to 19 °C in summer.

As the ocean temperatures influence the diving, so do the seasons and the winds that accompany them. In summer, the South Easterly winds bring clear waters to the Eastern side of False Bay and the Western coast of the Peninsula; and in winter it is typical for the North Easterly wind to blow, clearing up the waters on the Western side of False Bay.

Summer diving in the colder waters of the “Atlantic Side” is exhilarating and fascinating. There are a number of beautiful shore-entry dives as well as deeper reefs and historical wrecks that can be reached by dive boat leaving from Hout Bay harbour. The underwater topography is characterised by huge, rounded granite and sandstone boulders, often covered with kelp. These underwater wonderlands play host to prolific marine life, including colourful fields of purple, pink, orange and green sea urchins; brightly coloured sponges and soft corals. Fish such as Hottentot, Galjoen, Shy Sharks and Red Roman are plentiful on most dives, as is the opportunity to be accompanied by playful and inquisitive seals.

The Eastern side of False Bay offers fantastic boat and shore entry dives in summer. Dive sites along the craggy cliffs between Gordon’s Bay and Rooi Els reach a maximum depth of about 20 metres and a number are accessible from the shore. Deeper dives such as the magnificent Steenbras Deep, which reaches a depth of 30 metres, are located further from the shore and can be reached by boat. The reefs along this side of the bay are covered with kelp; red bait; colourful soft sponges; feather stars; orange, pink and purple noble coral; orange sea fans and many types of beautiful nudibranch. Fish life includes Twotone Fingerfin, Galjoen, Jutjaw, Puffadder Shy Shark and Klipvis. Gully Sharks and baby Ragged Tooth Sharks have also been spotted on dives at Rooi Els.

Winter diving in Cape Town takes place along the Western side of False Bay, from Glencairn, past Simon’s Town to the point of the Cape of Good Hope. Underwater topography comprises of huge rounded granite boulders and smaller sandstone boulders. Here we have the world-famous Smitswinkel Bay wrecks which lie at an average depth of 35 metres and are a collection of 5 ships that were scuttled by the Navy in the early 1970s to form an artificial reef. All wrecks can be reached by boat launching from Miller’s Point Slipway just South of Simon’s Town.

There are also a number of beautiful reefs which can be reached from the shore and boat. The reefs are adorned with colourful sponges; sea anemones; green, purple and orange short spine urchins; sea fans; fields of small orange sea cucumbers and brightly coloured nudibranch. Another dive site that is extremely exciting along this side of the coast is Pyramid Rock where divers have frequent sightings of Seven Gill cowsharks.

For comfortable diving, it is advisable to wear a 7mm wetsuit with a hoodie, booties and gloves.

The Cape Peninsula is a marine reserve and divers wishing to dive he Western Coast of the Cape Peninsula or the Western side of False Bay are required to obtain a diving permit before entering the water. Year-long permits can be purchased from local post offices and shorter-term permits are available from many of the dive operators.

Scuba Diving for Girls

When I decided to learn to scuba dive, my friends thought I was crazy. “Girls can’t scuba dive!” they said… “What about all that heavy stuff?”… “Only guys dive and they’ll just look at you as a burden”…. “It’s just not something girls do!”

Those comments were made by my non-scuba diving friends (male and female) many of whom, after seeing how much fun I was having, dived right in and are now fellow scuba divers.

When I started diving, I was the only girl on my Scuba Diver Course and one of two doing the Advanced Course. At that time there were less girls diving in our diving group than guys.

The girls that belonged to my dive club came from all age groups and levels of fitness. We had a 16 year old girl learning to dive with her 40 year old mother, a grandmother of 56, girls who participated in triathlons and girls whose only exercise was the walk from the car into the Wimpy. We all kept up with the boys, carried our own weights and cylinders and were often able to beat them at their joke telling (not that they would ever admit to that!).

Interestingly enough, we have recently seen that the boys taking scuba classes are being outnumbered by the girls. Quite a few or our students learn to dive so that they can join their partners on diving trips instead of sitting on the shore, jealously listening to how amazing the dive was and what they had seen. Some of the girls are adrenalin junkies wanting to try something different and others have “just always wanted to do it but never found the right person to teach them”. What ever the reason, after their first dives (if not their first!), they were all absolutely hooked and eager to do their next dive.

Although scuba diving does require a certain level of strength and fitness, it is not as strenuous as one expects and the bonus is, the more one dives, the fitter one becomes. I’ve also found that even if you are able to do it all yourself, there is always a gentleman somewhere wanting to help out. Swallow your pride girls, let them carry your weight belt or cylinder, just smile and say “thank you!”.

I won’t deny that there are a couple of minor drawbacks of being a girl diver. For example – for those girls with neatly manicured long nails - they won’t stay like this for long. Nails break easily, usually when pulling on wetsuits, picking up weights and climbing over rocks. The solution – keep your nails short. Long hair can also be a problem. If yours is anything like mine, whatever you do, you will always have a bird’s nest / dreadlock hairdo after taking off your hoodie. If you are lucky, plaiting your hair, putting it in a pony-tail and putting on some sort of hair wax, or simply saturating your hair with fresh water before a dive could help.

The other drawback is the need to go to the toilet (need I say more?). I’m not talking about going in your wetsuit whilst diving (or in your hired one which someone else has to wear…so please try not to!), but before or after a dive. The guys have it easy whereas for us girls, it is not always possible to find a toilet or a suitable bush in the middle of nowhere. This is awkward and you either have to drop all reservations and hide behind a car door or get yourself a “she pee” (say no more – I just can’t!).

Diving really is an amazing sport for girls. The places it can take you to, the people you meet (I met my husband scuba diving…), the sights you see, the experiences, the adventure and the feeling of total peace during a dive - and the feeling of being totally relaxed afterwards - makes this an unbeatable sport. Indigo Scuba is a great place to start your scuba diving adventure, or further your scuba diving qualifications and experience. Give us a call today to see how easy it is to become a scuba diving girl.

To Dive with a Dive Knife... or Not?

There’s been quite a bit of discussion recently on whether it is necessary to dive with a dive knife. Personal experience shows that taking a dive knife with you on every dive is not such a bad thing after all…

In Cape Town waters, we often dive on reefs where there is fishing activity. Hooks get caught on rocks, breaking the fishermen’s lines and leaving the lines strung from rock… to rock… to kelp … and across the path of the unassuming diver.

Fortunately, some of these lines – usually the thicker or luminous green ones - are reasonably easy to spot and avoid, but it does sometimes happen that a diver can become unexpectedly entangled. This is where you and your buddy will find your dive knives pretty useful!

Whilst checking out a dive site a few years ago, we noticed there were a number of people fishing from the rocks close to where we were going to be diving, so we knew we had to be on the look-out for fishing lines. As luck would have it one of our divers Graham, happened to swim across the path of a just-cast hook and sinker without noticing. We watched in disbelief as the float bobbed above his head and the hook lodged itself in the rubber mouthpiece of his regulator. Talk about being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I grabbed Graham’s arm and told him to stop and Deon, having anticipated what would happen next whipped out his dive knife, grabbed the line and cut it before Graham’s regulator could be yanked out of his mouth. At one point, the line was being pulled quite tight, so the poor fisherman must have thought he had the catch of his life at the end of his line!

We were just thankful that the hook found Graham’s regulator and had not landed in flesh! Ouch!! From that day forward, Graham has been known as “Graham Galjoen” (Galjoen being a type of fish!).

About 9 years ago, whilst kitting up for our first boat dive in Mozambique, we strapped our dive knives onto our calves as we always do. Once on board, there was much sniggering and the words “Rambo” floated down the boat towards us. Our fellow divers were nudging each other and everyone was looking pointedly at our knives and I soon realised that nobody else was wearing a dive knife. I wasn’t sure whether to feel embarrassed or surprised.

This was a double-tank dive so during our surface interval, I chatted to the DM about this and he said that nobody needed to dive with knives in Mozambique. We kept ours on for fear of losing them on the boat and were glad we did when, during the safety stop on the second dive, we had to free the DM’s cylinder net from a rather large hook and line - belonging to the boat’s skipper who had been catching fish whilst we were diving!

So, regardless of where we are diving, I always take a dive knife with me. To avoid the sarcastic “Rambo” comments in Mozambique however, I prefer to use a small dive knife attached to my BC… just in case! You never know when your knife will come in handy!