My dive at Aliwal Shawl (2006/07) - part 1

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Yazrick

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Messages
773
Reaction score
1
Location
Roodepoort, Gauteng, South Africa
# of dives
100 - 199
Aliwal Shawl is one of the more popular man made reefs in South Africa.
It has a variety of sea life and depending onthe time of the year, you trip can go from Nice to "UNBELIEVEBLE" :icon10: !!!!


This is a quick tale of my trip to Natal and my experiences :)

Duban's coast is a mere 6-7 hours drive away from my house. We left @ 3am and traveled to the guest lodge where we were too stay. Somewhere between here and there lies the Drakensburg mountains, one of the other wonders of the world in my opinion. The sun rise over the mountains, the birth of a new day :)
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Our fist day was spent familiarizing ourselves with the area around us as well “decompressing” as it is a 1500ft drop from Johannesburg to Durban.

My first dive was on Friday. Originally I planned to dive with a charter called “Dive Nautique” , but they canceled on me due to a lack of interest. I had dives scheduled with them for Saturday and Sunday too, but they were not sure that they would have enough people to take the boat out. I canceled with them and duly moved my plans to the trusted charters “Quo Vadis”.
http://www.raggiecave.com/

I would highly recommend them for anyone interested in diving on the south coast of Natal, South Africa. These are the first charters I dived with in Durban and after my experiences with other charters in the area , the only charters I will dive with.

Unfortunately, the Friday dive did not have enough people so Jean (Owner of Quo Vadis) arranged for me to join one of the other charters in the area (that’s what I call service). I got packed in with AquaPlanet, a fun group of people and many experienced divers. We started at North sands on Aliwal Shawl, and work our way down to Raggie’s cove along the edge of the reef. (See the map below)
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It is here where I did my first buoyancy check and had the other divers wait for me. On my descend my foot got tangled in the boy-line. I did not panic – I was quite prepared to un tangle myself – but my buddy had a close eye on me and showed me to relax while she untangled me. I leaned back – floating on my back (and realized I was floating) while she untangled me J If Rebecca ever reads this – You are a SUPER Buddy and I would love to dive with you again J

The dive was brilliant once I got my buoyancy resolved and the experience of floating weightless in the water just centimeters of the sand was brilliant J Initially I got so entranced by the whole experience that I completely forget to check my gages. Only when my buddy asked me how much air I had left did I remember to check and was surprised to see that after 28 minutes I was only on 100bar J Whereas usually I would have to start my ascend.
This clip was taken as we started on the reef:


As we approached Raggie’s cove, we noticed the first shark. Male Ragid Tooth shark, about 2 – 2,5m long, just “floating” there. One of the divers (an instructor and somewhat of a cowboy) went up to the shark – AS IN RIGHT NEXT TO IT !!!!! He was trying to “shoo” the shark away with his hands… The rest of the group was hiding behind one of the ledges of the reef while watching him. This is a clip of him with the shark…. This was a little scary to be honest
 
After the shark episode we continued. Spectacular experience if you take into account what we saw:
Peacock Rockcod
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Sea Star
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Spotted Ragged Tooth Shark
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Crown Squirrelfish
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Dead Man’s Fingers (Soft Coral)
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Natal Catfish (Venomous)
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Cute little Slug
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Ladder Wrasse
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Cluster Finger Coral
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Young Sea Turtle
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Black Cheek Moray Eel
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Lobster
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There was also a HUMONGOUS Potato Bass, but the pictures didn’t come out clearly enough.

All the time while diving, the songs of the whales and dolphins echoed through the waters, but they kept their distance (for the time being). On our ascend they decided to show themselves in spectacular splendor. A pod of roughly 30 – 50 dolphins came over us as and started circling and darting through the crowd of divers. As they moved we followed them (carefully keeping an eye on our depth and air of cause). I have never experienced something like this. One of the guys had a camcorder and captured it all on DvD for us. When I get an application that can rip it movie file – I’ll be sure to post the link for you to see.

Eventually we had to surface and the skipper pointed out that the Manta Rays had decided to pay us a visit too. I jumped in with snorkel gear before they could extend the invite J I saw 2 Manta’s, a mother and her baby, and what I would like to think as the father :) The mother was about 1,5m from tip to tip and the little baby (not more than 30cm) floating close to her. She moved with grace and ease through the water and the little baby stayed centre with her movement the whole time. The shark-chasing-daredevil diver pulled a true redneck tri trying to jump onto the rays from the boat. When I confronted him on this, his response was “IT’s my boat – You can swim back if you want”. Needless to say – it was my last dive them.

The rest of my dives was with Quo Vadis. The respect these people have for the sea as well as their divers are not only heartwarming, but also inspiring. It was our second dive on Saturday. The Natal Sharks board is doing a project with a group of Black tipped Reef sharks (new to the area). They feed these sharks ion a weekly basis and study them. Since Jean has a good relationship with the sharks board, they allowed us to snorkel a few meters away from the feeding spot. WHAT A TRIP !!!!
Being in the water – only meters away of the feeding sharks, watching them dart with the speed of light for the food, their grace, their elegance, their awesome ability and presence. We floated about for about an hour. Around 30 sharks about, Black tips, Ragged tooth and Tiger sharks. I will never forget that :)
 
As the saying goes – all good things must come to an end, and on Sunday our bags were packed and we stared the road home J
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The winter struck brown country side with mountains rising in the distance like the fences of a forbidden world, was all that could take my thoughts away from my big blue experience.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed “living” it :)
 
Nice report.

Just a comment on your first post.

Aliwal Shoal is not man-made - who told you that?

Will be diving there this weekend, and the diving there is usually awesome.
 
Hi,

You made me just a bit homesick. Vetches Pier in Durban is man made. Its the small reef (the end of which is exposed at low tide) just North of the northern pier of the harbour entrance. It was the original offloading pier for the old sailing ships and you can still find shards of old pottery there. Its not very deep so is used mainly by snorkelers. Aliwal is awesome. Did you shoot the Raggie at Raggie Cave? Glad you enjoyed it.
 
Yes - the sharks were taken at Raggies Cove :)
Was an amazing experience and I wish I was back there.

SA-Diver - where are you from ?
I might have read that the pinnacles was the out crops of the ship used to create the reef.
 
Hey Yazrick, SA-Diver is def right, Aliwal is not man made at all. Sure there are the 2 wrecks in the area, but they didnt make Aliwal
 
Live and work in Pretoria.

We dive the Shoal at least once a month.
Got great video footage of Raggies in Cathedral on the weekend of the 28th July.

There are two nice DVD's available about the Shoal and the Produce and Nebo:
"Seasons of Aliwal Shoal"
"Shipwrecks of Aliwal Shoal"

I have seen these at a few diveshops in Pretoria and JHB, or you could get it from one of the charters in Umkomaas.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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