I put this short film together after a great days diving. We spent the day looking for yellowtail (Seriola lalandii) and I manage to film and shoot a fish. There were alot of ragged tooth sharks on the reef and one came up to try eat my yellowtail, which was nice to capture on film.They are only interested in the fish and can be easily pushed away.

Please have a look, the film speaks for it’s self ……………….

If you liked it, please let me know and PASS IT ON ……. I want to make some more of these

Cheers

Steve

7am Friday morning saw Andrew, Wikus, Steve, Grant and myself kitting up at Ysterfontein and heading out. It was the first real calm day after a few days of SE. I had heard the tail had been around the island the previous day and wanted to see if they were still there.

We headed to the island and spent the morning jumping on scattered bird activity that wasnt great. Grant was very keen to get one and dived hard. He did manage to get a spear into one but it came off.
We headed to the west side and found all the commercial boats catching snoek. Steve shot a nice hottie on a shallow bank….but no tail. At about 12 we headed to the inside of the island again. What we found was great. The tail were swimming north into the wind 100m from the shore. We started doing drifts south with the wind down the side of the island. I was dropping the guys near the birds and they swam to them and dived knowing the tail will be below. The team quickly learned that shooting tail isn’t easy. The guys hit 6 shoals in a row seeing hundreds of fish swimming all over the place.
It was hilarious from the boat watching everyone pop up after a dive shouting with excitement. MANY lessons were learned and alot of growth for the divers
It was a great day and Im so glad that every one got 1 fish in the boat, well done guys you earned it
Steve

We headed out into the deep for a day of exploration. Here are some images from the day

Hundreds of seabirds following a stern trawler

Looking for Tuna

Trawler chasing

White chinned petrol feeding on left overs from the trawler

James Toylor body surfing the bellows

We had a great day spent at Dassen Island, 100km north of Cape Town on the west coast and 10km Offshore.

We jumped in with a pod of Dusky dolphins half way to the island. The vis was a shocking 1m but we still had dolphins between our legs. We went greeted with great 12m vis around the island and it didn’t take us long to get in and hunt for a hottentot. We found 4 pyjama sharks in huise baai, but they didn’t stick around. On a SCUBA dive on the south corner of the island Falk and myself watched 3 houndsharks (Mustilis mustilis) interacting. It appeared to be one large female being trailed by 2 small males. Crayfish were in every crevice, I cant wait for the season to open. Later on whilst searching for big hottentot I had a pair of yellowtail swim up to me. One swam away and the other was just eaten for supper.

A great day on the sea.

Read what Morten wrote about the day here

First a short clip of the dusky dolphins we encountered and then a few images from the day……

Morten on the inside edge of Dassen Island

Dassen Island in glassy, flat conditions

Hagfish coming in to eat a pilchard

Pelicans on the Island, watch out penguins and cormerants

Hottentot in kelp forest