All the conditions came together for this rare night dive. Surfers became depressed in the preceding week because the ocean did not deliver anything useful, while the divers were rubbing their hands together as visibility got better and better every day. Conditions held for the dive, and all divers waited anxiously for the sun to go down so they could get in the water.
Underwater Photos taken in Jeffreys Bay and St. Francis Bay
These are some of the photos taken and dive logs written mostly by myself or Jacques Alberts who operated in Jeffreys Bay under the African Waters Scuba brand for many years. We include these old photos and stories here, so that you can get an idea of what it looks like underwater in our area.
After a long hiatus with several dives cancelled due to bad weather or large swell, the usual suspects and some new faces gathered at the J-Bay Ski Boat club at the crack of dawn on Sunday Morning. Okay, maybe it was not that early, but after a big weekend, some found it hard to get out of bed. Conditions improved greatly from the previous day, with a light offshore breeze and sunshine weather, leaving the ocean like a mirror. - Report and photos by Paul van Jaarsveld
On Saturday 10 May 2014 we decided to look for something new and found an amazing 42m deep part of the Long Mile Reef about 6km off shore. All the divers used nitrox which extended our bottom time but we still had to do 29min's deco stops on our way up.
Wow. At African Waters Scuba in Jeffreys Bay we have been blessed with pristine weather, managing to at least one dive every day. When conditions held, we were even able to do two launches. It's great to see some annual regulars, and some of the usual suspects that crawled out of their "work caves" to experience what the ocean has to offer. Bottom temp has been in the the 15 to 20 degrees celcius range and we have spotted plenty of fish life including raggies. Satruday morning we had a full boat on the first launch, but the second launch was called off due to the wind picking up and the beach break being particularly nasty. Paul van Jaarsveld did manage to sneak onto the dive at Flatrock Reef and took some photos. Dive time was a solid 45minutes and visibility varied between 5m and 10m with a measured 15 Celcius minimum bottom temp. There are daily boat launches so if you are interested use the contact us page. We are operating from the J-Bay Ski Boat Club to the right of the Main Beach. Just drive towards Deviswijf.
With large winter storms, howling winds and stong swell running up the coast during this season, it was a delight to find some quiet weather and clean water. On 3 August 2013 the usual suspects kitted up and due to the good viz Jacques made a call to do a very shallow 6 - 8m dive at Discovery Channel. The surge was not too bad, and it was interesting to dive a bit closer to shore because the underwater landscape changes considerably from 20m to 6m. Water temp was in the range of 18 degrees and viz varied greatly between 5 and 15m depending how close you were to sand patches. Several raggies (Ragged Tooth Shark) were spotted by a few lucky divers who decided punch through sandy patches. The other group turned around and put their attention on smaller weird and wonderful creatures. The new Dive Master student group did things like search and recovery and they also did the 800m swim to shore.
I got an sms early on Good Friday that there is a space open on the boat. My planning was to dive on Saturday only, but moments later I was suited up. I grabbed the gopro and left the big camera at home, because it would take too long to rig. After two days of light onshore winds, there was a bit of a West and this seemed to clean things up quite a bit. We had a prestine dive, with viz going beyond 10m at places. This is just a quick video I put together and gives a good idea of a typical dive with African Waters Scuba. We did not spot any raggies on the dive, but there were some big yellow belly rock cod. the biggest one was too quick, I could not get the camera near to it, and the gopro does not do it justice. I reckon it was about 1m long. It hid in it's own cave, and it seemed like some other fish protected it, that was also of a decent size. Enjoy the video!
Dive log by Paul van Jaarsveld.
What a weekend we had at Noordhoek. Four dives done and the EP Kings won! On Saturday we dived Gunners and had 17 deg at 39.1m with about 8 to 10m viz. Then we dived at X Roads and had almost the same conditions. The westerly wind made the ocean a bit choppy on top but the dives were great. On Sunday we dived Gasmic and planned to do our second dive on Suicide reef but the swell picked up and we went to Little Sodwana.
Well our holiday season had come and gone and seems so distant now that everyone is back at work. The weather and ocean was really nice to us during the season in JBay and we managed to launch almost every day with some days up to 3 launches! Loads of new faces and so many new friends made. I trust you all had a super diving experience with us and see you again soon.