Cape Town Dive Festival 2014

[xyrandomyx]

The Cape Town Dive Festival is going to be held again this year on Friday the 2nd and Saturday the 3rd of May at Seaforth Beach. It's R100 to register and between R100 and R175 per dive if you register/ book before the 1st of April. All the details can be found here: Festival Info | Cape Town Dive Festival

I found out about the festival on SB user SHiBBY's website: Diver's Digest. Thursday the 1st of May is a public holiday, so the festival makes a good excuse for taking a day off on Friday for a super-long, diving-filled weekend. There are boats launching to a variety of sites every ten minutes between 8:00 AM and 2:30 PM, so, if you have the energy and plan carefully, you could probably squeeze three or even four dives in each day. I missed the last festival, which was held in September 2012, so I'm very keen to attend this one. I think May is the better time of year -- there should be enough north-wester to clean up False Bay, but it won't be as cold as in the middle of winter.

 

[hallucienate]

I'm keen, I just need to figure out which dives to do!

 

[xyrandomyx]

I'm keen, I just need to figure out which dives to do!

Hah, yes. I'm having the same problem. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get the Friday off work and I'd like to buddy up with a couple different people at the festival, so the logistics are getting a little tricky. I'll figure it out, though.

 

[hallucienate]

Is that you Gareth? You buddied with me on the DSS club dives (Have you got rid of the bags in you car yet?).

I'll also be looking for a buddy or two.

 

[xyrandomyx]

Is that you Gareth? You buddied with me on the DSS club dives (Have you got rid of the bags in you car yet?).

I'll also be looking for a buddy or two.

Yes. And no. I'll get rid of them any day now.

 

[xyrandomyx]

I've finally actually booked my dives for the Dive Festival. I've only booked for the Saturday; I might try to add dives on the Friday closer to the time. I'll be on the following launches:

0920 Friskies Reef (Roman Rk)
1110 Tivoli Pinnacle
1310 Photographers

 

[widget]

Hmm, interesting, who runs the festival as I dont see any listing? I am assuming this is not the same as the regular annual Scuba Pro sponsored event?

Dont know, but as I have a holiday home in Cape Town I may just decide to spend a week or so stocking up the wine cellar and get a dive or two in as well.

Will see closer to the time how it looks but it would be interesting to hear more.

 

[xyrandomyx]

It's not the same as the annual Scubapro Day event. I think the one the year before last was the first (I haven't been diving long enough to be sure). It seems Grant from Blue Flash is in charge of organising the event, but all (literally all, as far as I can tell) the dive ops in Cape Town are participating. It must've taken quite a bit to get them to all agree with each other.

My guess is that there'll still be quite a few spots left closer to the time, but that you probably won't be able to be picky about the dive sites. Let us know if you do decide to join (there'll be a few SBers there).

 

[xyrandomyx]

I've managed to get the day off on Friday the 2nd of May, so I'm booking another three dives:

0830 Anchor Reef
1040 Castor Rock
1300 Ark Rock

I haven't dived the first two before. Ark Rock isn't the most exciting site, but it's pretty good and very easy to navigate; and I need to do a shallower dive after the other two. I would've gone for Photographer's Reef, but I'm diving that the next day, so I thought it'd be nicer to mix the sites up.

I was thinking of entering the photography competition. But all of my dives are going to be too deep to not use external strobes, so I'd have to enter in the 'Intermediate' category. There'd only be a very, very slim chance of me getting a prize, so it doesn't really seem worth the effort of lugging a laptop along to process pics. So I'm probably going to leave the camera behind and use the dives for practice in my new drysuit -- six dives in two days should do my buoyancy control some good.

 

[xyrandomyx]

Dive Festival on Friday and Saturday! If the weather forecast is to be believed, it's looking pretty good. It'll be a little cool and partly cloudy on both days. Low swell and very little wind on Friday. A little bit of wind and slightly larger medium-period swell on Saturday, but not enough to make either the boat ride or the dives too bumpy. There's not enough north-west wind to really clean up False Bay this week, but since it's quite cloudy, I don't think it'll be too green out there. I'm sure there'll be at least a respectable 6--8 metres once we get under the layer of muck near the surface.