WEEKEND ADVENTURE
Sealed with a kiss...
Gansbaai's beauty queens
Seal snorkeling with Animal Ocean
Hout Bay, South Africa
There are three ways to see the Cape Fur Seals in Hout Bay. You can walk the harbourfront and watch a few frolicking between the boats;
you can take one of the many sedate ferry rides out to nearby Duiker Island where thousands of seals breed or - and this is a must-do for visitors and locals alike - you can get into snorkeling gear, head out from the harbour with Animal Ocean, and swim in the turquoise channel alongside Duiker Island (hidden behind the headland at left in the the below aerial shot / copyright Allan James Lipp off www.treakearth.com).
Once in the water, you'll be surrounded by hordes of curious seal pups and their playful moms. It’s the most fun, most relaxing thing you could do possibly do on a sunny day. Oh – if you don’t know Hout Bay, it’s a sprawling town embraced by mountains,
about 15 minutes south of central Cape Town, South Africa. Besides seals, it has great fish and chips and a vibey weekend craft market.
Me, Christelle and our friend Bianca Estevez went out on 15th March with Animal Ocean for the morning seal trip and came back beaming from ear to ear, feeling totally enriched by the experience. We’re all locals, by the way, and this was mine and Christelle’s second time. We were joined by several American students doing internships in greater Cape Town. All we had to bring was ourselves and a basic swimming ability (plus nausea tablets for those worried about seasickness). Our chaperones for the day, Mike and Brendon, had everything else we needed – wetsuits, booties, gloves, masks, snorkels, GoPro’s for hire on request and the necessary safety briefing before launch. You’re probably thinking a safety briefing on great white sharks – since they are your chief connoisseurs of seals in these waters – but no. A white shark hasn’t been spotted in Hout Bay for about ...20 years. They generally frequent the warmer side of the Cape Peninsula, in False Bay, and prey on the larger seal colonies there. They also ambush their prey out in the open and from below, so would find hunting seals racing around over a shallow rocky shelf in 3m water deeply frustrating and unsuccessful!
Safety with the seals is more about not straying too far from the snorkel area and not tugging at the seals’ whiskers, or trying to manhandle them in any way. They are friendly, but they are still wild, so you need to let them come to you and dictate the ebb and flow of interactions. We spent more than an hour in the water, literally surrounded. Two or three bumped me slightly as they whizzed past, teasing me to try and keep pace with them. One tiny pup literally got all up in my face and pressed its nose up against my face mask. The innocence in those large eyes was amazing. Some simply swam tireless corkscrew circles around the snorkelers - talk about energy. Mike, a qualified diver, was in the water with us at all times and we felt 100% safe. So did the seals, despite having these strange looking creatures in their midst. When we finally boarded the boat and lit out for shore, they followed us for a good while, ‘waving goodbye’ after the play date. What a privilege for us humans, to be made so welcome on their home turf.
Underwater seal photographs copyright Steve Benjamin/Animal Ocean. Daily trips (weather allowing) run from November through April.
Visit Animal Ocean.
Shark viewing with Shark Diving Unlimited
9 August 2013
If you're in South Africa and want to see great white sharks face to face,
book with the apex predator of shark expeditions, Mike 'Shark Man' Rutzen's
Shark Diving Unlimited. Mike – probably the only person you could meet who
has dived with great whites in the open ocean – knows the waters off Gansbaai
the way you or I would know our neighbourhood; where every reef lies,
and every gully. He also knows the sharks: their behaviour, their movements
and many of their individual personalities.
But what is it like as a layman, to see a great white shark in the wild?
Watching the sunlight dapple along the gunmetal grey back of a 3.5m great white
as she cruises by for the first time is, surprisingly, one of the most
peaceful experiences you could have. 9/10 People who first see the sharks,
whether from the cage or from topside, are amazed at how non-agressive
they are. Some appear timid, others confident or playful, they all show curiosity,
and every one is a character - but there's no aggression. Yet these are wild
animals and predators so,no, you do not try and pat them when they brush
past the cage (you'd be immediately dumped back on land, too).
The sharks we saw on 9 August – National Women's Day! – ranged from 'small' (see above) – probably males, to large 3.5m females by the end of the trip (top right). The larger sharks tend to scare off whatever smaller ones are around, so they just get bigger as time goes by.
Forget the stereotype of that huge dorsal fin scything through the water, by the way – the sharks hardly ever do that,
instead approaching as silent grey shadows just beneath the surface, or rising up from the depths below.
This being my second outing with Mike's crew, I decided to forego the cold and related discomfort of the cage, and watch from the deck. The water was swimming-pool clear, so you could follow the sharks - up to 7 or 8 - around the boat as they circled; sometimes you'd be standing on the side of the boat when they hove into view literally below your feet.
The cage is more of an up/down exercise; you don't have a snorkel because bubbles scare the sharks, so you're continually dropping down, holding your breath, then bobbing up. In the moments below you will see great whites passing by within mere feet – a sight so vivid your eyes can hardly process it. You can't not do the cage, at least once.
Further insight on the sharks can often be gleaned from the marine biologists on board, who regularly board SDU's Barracuda to study the sharks and further global understanding of this species. Mike Rutzen and his team, along with marine biologist Sara Andreotti, have identified 200+ animals in the area by photographing their dorsal fins. Shark Diving Unlimited also supports other legitimate research on sharks done through the the Department of Environmental Affairs.
Seeing the sharks for the first time is best described as a humbling experience that leaves you with a sense of calm, elation and happiness, knowing that these incredible creatures are out there, and thankfully protected by law (SA was the first country to do this).
Gansbaai is 90 minutes or more from Cape Town, but there's an SDU shuttle to take you out in the early hours and back again in the afternoon - our excellent driver was Chris. The boat trip itself is normally about 2 – 3 hours, after which there's hot coffee and food back at SDU HQ,
as well as a DVD of your experience for purchase. Take seasickness tablets, sunblock and warm layers of clothing, that's about it.
Best months to book for: There's no wrong time, but June – August (SA's winter) are when the sharks primarily prey on the seals at
Dyer Island - high shark season. A lot of tourists visit the Cape in our summer months, but if you're a shark lover, brave the winter and
come and see the beauty queens of Gansbaai at their most beautiful.
Shark Diving Unlimited on Facebook
Lords of
the Great Plains
Simons Town Boat Company
False Bay - South Africa
July 2013
Whale photographs © Dave Hurwitz
If you're in Cape Town over the winter months, your best bet for getting up close to the giants of the deep is Dave Hurwitz's Simons Town Boat Company, sole permit holder for boat-based whale watching in False Bay (Permit No. 0806336).
Whales are sensitive creatures and can only be approached by experienced, approved operators.
Many people head for Hermanus during September's world-famous Whale Festival, to see Southern Right Whales close to shore – the big black whales, encrusted with barnacles.
But if you hop onboard with STBC at Simons Town (30 mins to central Cape Town), you'll venture far out into the turquoise sweep of False Bay to encounter not just Southern Rights, but also possibly Humpbacks, Bryde's Whales, Pilot Whales, sometimes even Sperm Whales or Killer Whales. There are seals, dolphins and several shark and ray species in the bay (less famous but equally fascinating cousins to local star, the Great White Shark). You never know what you're going to find (or what's going to find you).
Like land, the surface of the ocean is a definite terrain. It's quite startling to travel through very different 'geographical regions' of water, from glass-smooth flat lands to choppy channels or hillscapes of undulating rollers; all the while looking for that telltale whale blow.
When Christelle and I joined a recent trip out with accomplished STBC guide Anees, our first sighting led to a majestic Bryde's Whale (pronounced 'Bru-des'), which Anees said they call the 'Ferrari of the seas', because of its sleek shape - the greatest height of a Bryde's body is 1/7 of its total length – and impressive speed. Bryde's whales, which scoop up vast shoals of small fish (like anchovies) in their baleen plates, normally move at about 2-7 km/hour but can reach up to 25 km/hour. They're also pretty shy and not likely to congregate in large groups, so we were lucky to spot - and more or less keep up with - this gunmetal grey cruiser.
After a circuit of Seal Island, with its seasonal troupe of Great Whites undoubtedly hanging out below us near the ocean bed, eyeing the roof of their world for a hapless seal, we travelled for a while with a pod of Common Dolphins and their young. As they tunneled under and around our boat, seemingly effortless in their speed, we noticed there were also four or five Cape Fur Seals with the group – safety in numbers, perhaps?
Can't wait to go out with Dave and crew again, to seek out the lords of the great plains. If only they would leave the kind of unmistakable traces in their wake that a herd of elephants barreling through the bush does. I'd most like to track the highly intelligent Orcas – they are spotted off the SA coast from time to time (they're also the topic of a new documentary about the USA's Sea World that's making waves).
Simons Town Boat Company goes out (weather dependant) at 10:30 and 14:00 daily.
Call +27 (0)83 2577760 or email info@boatcompany.co.za.
Dave Hurwitz also works with the SA Whale Disentanglement Network (SAWDN),
a voluntary group of officially-endorsed professionals who free cetaceans from
entanglement in fishing gear such as rock lobster buoys, ropes and netting.
Whale photographs on this page © Dave Hurwitz
