Report and photos by Paul van Jaarsveld
Sunday morning at 8am saw a full launch, with the boat filled to capacity. The ocean was pretty much flat. Due to wave like sandbanks that formed over the weekend, getting the boat into deep enough water was more of an effort than actually making it past the breakers. The surf in the bay was really small. We were going to do a shallow dive on Discovery Channel, but due to the viz that did not look great close to shore due to algae, we ventured a little further to Jagged Edge to find a shallow piece of reef with better viz. On the open sea, the SW wind blew at 19 kts which resulted in a similar surface current to Friday night, but just in the opposite direction. Neville took the line and the rest of us did a near negative entry to elimanate drift.
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.
Log entry by Paul van Jaarsveld
At last it was weekend and by 6pm some amping desperate divers from all over pulled into the clubhouse. Minutes before, the Ski boat club were going about their usual braai, and the bar was open, but I got funny glares when I asked them if they thought it was a good idea to do a launch.
On Saturday we did PADI Discover Scuba Diving at Ocean Divers Int in Port Elizabeth. Jeanette from Imvelaphi Safaris enjoyed it so much that she has decided to join us on an ocean dive as part of her experience and will start her PADI Open Water Diver course shortly afterwards.
On Saturday we were on our way to dive Geelbek Rock Reef when our GPS couldn't communicate with the satellite and we decided to look for something new! What an excellent new piece of reef we found!
National Women's Day
On 9 Aug we celebrated national women's day with 2 launches. On our first dive we dived at Flat Rock reef. Surface temp was 16 degrees and we had about 4 to 5m viz. Some nice Raggies were seen.
On Thursday 4 August we did some PADI Refresher courses at the Savoy Hotel in JBay. The knowledge section went quite smooth and then it was time for some "ice" diving. All the skills were refreshed and although the water was a cold 8 degrees, well done to the divers who managed not to shiver too much.
Saturday´s dive was cancelled due to brown muddy water still in the bay flowing from the Gamtoos river after the good rains we had and some guys were just too downhearted after another great performance by the Boks.....
There was no wind, but the surf had picked up as we launched on Saturday morning from Jeffreys Bay main beach for our double tank dives to Geelbek Rock and Little Chelsea reefs. A warm 18 degrees at the surface was quite a surprise but due to a layer on 10m deep our viz was greatly reduced at the bottom. Tommy completed his PADI Advanced diver course by completing his Deep Dive.