Diving in Cape Town

Silently bal­an­cing in a state of almost com­plete weight­less­ness, the dark water mov­ing around you, it can feel almost med­it­at­ive. Here, in the quiet depths of the ocean, you are forced to ignore your often hyper­act­ive, chat­ter­ing mind and just focus on the dive, all your atten­tion focused on absorb­ing the strange and some­times alien world around you. As reg­u­lar divers know, noth­ing com­pares to the raw pur­ity of the untamed sea.

The great thing about diving in Cape Town is the vari­ety of dives. For starters you have two oceans to choose from and on any given day if the con­di­tions aren’t great on one side, they’re likely to be per­fect on the other. There are simple dives for those who are brav­ing it for the first time as well as more chal­len­ging dives for the more seasoned adventure-seeker. So whether you want to dive off of a boat and exper­i­ence the deeper waters, or make a simple beach entry, the choice is yours and the oceans are quite lit­er­ally your playground.

Some of the best dives are in Simon's Town, a quaint har­bour town that offers plenty of things to do and see; navy ships, unique little res­taur­ants and the pen­guins of Boulders beach for those not tak­ing part in the diving. Known as the ‘A Frame area’, there are four dives in close prox­im­ity here. All have an easy beach entry and once beneath the waters divers have the pleas­ure of swim­ming amongst some beau­ti­ful sea life: rays, pipe fish, sole weav­ing their way through thick kelp forests.

Not far from there are the False Bay reefs. These are best accessed by boat, how­ever if you swim about a kilo­meter and a half from just about any­where in Simon's Town you will inter­cept this reef. Here you dive amongst the mad and play­ful world of the seals, dart­ing in dif­fer­ent dir­ec­tions, put­ting on a char­ac­ter­is­it­cally ener­getic under­wa­ter dis­play. Remember to bring your cam­era as these dives have plenty of ‘Kodak’ moments for the diver want­ing to show off to friends back home.

For those who want to explore the the mys­ter­ies of the Cape Town oceans, there are also a num­ber of wrecks and caves. There are 5 wrecks situ­ated in the False Bay area, all offer­ing unique dive oppor­tun­it­ies. On the other side, Oudekraal is a fant­astic Atlantic Seaboard dive with an easy beach entry that boasts an array of sea life, the price­less col­ours of Justin’s caves, and the old­est known South African wreck, dat­ing back to 1670.

For the exper­i­enced diver one of the essen­tial dive exper­i­ences is the annual ‘Sardine Run’ when shoals of thou­sands of sardines migrate down South Africa’s east coat. Occuring between May and July, the Sardine Run provides a truly spectu­lar view­ing and pho­to­graphic oppor­tun­ity and shouldn’t be missed.

There are plenty of PADI scuba diving courses avail­able in Cape Town for all levels, as well as hol­i­day diving pack­ages which take the diver on a whirl­wind tour of the dive spots of South Africa, some­times cross­ing the bor­der into the dive spots in Mozambique.

Useful Links:
Dive South Africa (South Africa's Top Diving Site)
South Africa Outdoor Adventure
Accommodation in South Africa