Dive Inn first quarter update 2017
Dive Inn first quarter update 2017
Wow, these days the time flies. My idea was to blog every month about something and now I note the first quarter of the year is already gone. Thus the heading for this blog is Dive Inn first quarter update 2017 and almost a follow up on Dive Inn Cape Town 2016 blog of January.
My sightseeing tours are still doing very well with me doing about 8-12 tours a month and the rest followed by Scuba diving. Scuba diving, PADI training, Dan First aid training or nudibranch hunting. So far this year my computer states 58 dives and 60.2 hours underwater.
98 percent of all the tours and dives are still private with 1-4 people per day. I normally do not mix booked guests unless the weather force my hand and then also only with confirmation with my current guests.
In February we had a great Scuba dive trip to Aliwal Shoal and stayed and dive with Aliwal shoal scuba. For 2 days we drove down the coast to Protea banks and dived with Aqua Planet. Protea banks were the first time we dived there and it was really great. We did do a baited dive, followed by a deep reef dive. In future I would mostly do a baited dive on Aliwal rather than protea BUT we did see Zambesi (bull) sharks here. Unfortunately the Tiger sharks did not come by. The water was much clearer and the current very strong. On the 2nd dive we spotted a school of
Hammerheads and were an awesome sight to see. Day 2 we did only one dive in great viz and drifted 4.8 km on the 50 minute dive. Thus stay with the dive master as if you do not do it you will be lost in a flash. ALSO the clear warm water can let you dive too deep so easily so keep a look out on your computer and air usage.
Aliwal we had good viz as well with our one and first dive to the Nebo wreck low viz. The low viz was on the wreck itself, midwater was a nice blue but our Cape Town guys were still able to enjoy the low viz dive. Think the DM’ts on this dive was a bit worried. The rest of the 9 other dives were good, nice colours and I was still able to find some Nudibranchs. This time we had no ragged tooth sharks compared to our trip 2 years back where raggies were almost in my Nudibranch pics.
The next trip to warmer waters will be in September/October to Mozambique you can book by sending a mail to: carel@diveinn.co.za.
Last week we had a big group from Ukraine and Dive Inn went in partnership with Kimo and Tammy from Redsea Jol for the Cape Town stretch of the tour and dives. They just came from Sodwana and Aliwal. It was a tough schedule but a great one to see our wonderful city. We had Great white shark cage diving with Marine dynamics, followed by a drive to Agulhas, the southernmost point of Africa.
Next day was seals and sharks with Shark explorers and penguin viewing. Day 3 was a Cape Peninsula tour with 3 doing an extra seal dive. I chartered Tony form Learn to dive. Day 4 Winelands tour with 10 again doing Blue and Mako shark diving. Day 5 ended most of the touring with a Cape Town city tour. The weather did not play along thus the guys went up the mountain on their off day the Saturday. Organising, touring and diving with such a big group were a first for me but a great experience.
Most of my other tours the last 3 months were in, around, above or under Cape Town. The furthest we ventured was to the game lodges at Sanbona between Montague and Barrydale. We were fortunate enough to have spotted lots of different animals above and below water. Underwater we were even lucky to see rare Nudibranchs and have been
spotting a new well camouflaged and very small Nudibranch. At this point we do not know the name of the species.
The beginning of the month the Submerge Diving Magazine published some of my photos in their “Viewfinder” section. Go get your copy or even better subscribe. I am very satisfied with the outcome of the published photos.
Dive Inn first quarter update 2017
This in short was Dive Inn first quarter update 2017. I hope to get a more interesting blog out in May with more Photos of the rarer Nudibranchs species or even new ones we have been spotting in Cape Town.
Happy Diving, Traveling and Touring