South Africa is a magical place for adventure on land and underwater. It has especially magnificent dive spots to add to your logbook, for the beginner as well as the experienced diver. Let’s take a quick look at just a few of the more popular places to dive in South Africa.
Aliwal Shoal
At the beginning of 2005 Aliwal Shoal became a Marine Protected Area. It is situated approximately 50km south of Durban, off the small town of Umkomaas on the south coast of KwaZulu-Natal. Aliwal Shoal is situated approximately 5km from the Umkomaas beach and offers a variety of dives, including open water, advanced, shark and wreck diving. There are two wrecks that can be dived near the shoal, namely the Produce and the Nebo.
The Aliwal Shoal is a 1.5km wide fossilized sandbank on the inner edge of the Mozambique current. Visibility is usually excellent. The Aliwal Shoal is best known for the ragged-tooth sharks that are found there in the winter months!
False Bay
False Bay offers the diver such a variety that it is difficult to classify this coastline as any particular ‘type’ of diving. Dive sites range vastly in bottom terrain depending on where in False Bay you choose to dive. It changes from rocky terrain and steep cliffs on the western side of the Bay through to sandy bottoms on the eastern side. False Bay is distinguished by vast, dense kelp forests that are the home for pyjama sharks, leopard catsharks, and puffadder shysharks.
On a sunny day at a dive site 10-14m deep, the beautiful colors of the corals and anemones will amaze you. The Gordon’s Bay, Rooi Els and Simon’s Town sites boast spectacular sea fans in bright oranges and reds, which sway in the surge. Feather stars in various shades of orange and brown share space with soft corals in pinks and purples. The friendly Cape fur seal will often make an appearance on your dive.
Protea Banks
Protea Banks is situated near the town of Shelly Beach, approximately 160km south of Durban. A fossilized sand dune reef lies in an east to west direction along the coast. There are two distinct areas on which all the dive charters focus: the Southern and Northern Pinnacles.
Ranked among the top shark and game fish dives in the world, Protea Banks offers you a variety of sharks and pelagics on every dive. During the summer months the Zambezi shark makes the banks its home. Hammerheads are often seen overhead – not just one or two, but hundreds. Guitar sharks, coppers, and blacktips frequent here. In the winter months the ragged-tooth sharks congregate on Protea to mate. Along with sharks there are barracuda, snapper, tuna, yellowtail, kingfish, and potato bass. Other different species that you may encounter on the dive include humpback whale, spotted eagle ray, manta ray, devil ray, whale shark, and brindle bass.