Hey Guys

I have finally gotten printed a few pieces of clothing printed.

Please have a look.

The T shirts are R120

Green sleeved shirts are R140

Hoodies are R250

This excludes shipping

Seal diving T shirts and sleeves shirts

Cowshark diving T shirts

The conditions over the last few days have been phenominal. We headed out to the seal colony to be greeted by amazing conditions and an abnormal amount of seals in the water playing. Here are the images to show you what I mean

Caught in a playful frenzy

Lauren, Emma and Lee about to join the seal pups

Lauren de Vos writes – Soaking up the warm rays of an unexpectedly summery day, we dodged the crowds thronging the beaches around Cape Town and headed out on the Animal Ocean boat to spend an afternoon snorkeling with seals in Hout Bay. It had been a long time since any of us had been out in the ocean and our chatty enthusiasm was encouraged by Steve as he guided the boat towards Seal Island; all of us taking deep gulps of the salty air and whooping with delight as we cruised over the azure water that glittered all around. Wrapped in as much neoprene as we could muster, without losing all of our ability to move, we were more than ready to brave the cold water! Goggles on, snorkels in – and with much laughter all around – we plunged in amidst the gently waving kelp, sparkling bubbles … and dozens of seal pups, their tiny torpedo bodies zooming past us as we kicked our flippers and dived deeper. Exhilaration, fascination and enchantment was evident on every one of our faces as the pups swam fearlessly over to investigate our strange forms, our goggles mirrored in their big, dark eyes. It was all action as we played together, us in our neon-lemon snorkels, and the seal pups’ small, dark shapes flitting in between our delighted group. Of course, there was plenty time to dive down to investigate the bright blues, purples and reds of the anemones clinging tenaciously to the rocks. We excitedly pointed out slow-moving nudibranchs to each other, and marveled at the myriad of life and colour swirling around us. It was a breathlessly happy group who reassembled later on the boat, peeling off our layers of seal-like wetsuit and sharing stories of what we’d seen. An afternoon of sunshine, salt water and seal pups? There’s nothing like it!

Hanli Prinsloo and the curious pack of pups

Last week Tuesday, 11 interns from the volunteer Adventure Corporation (VACorps) went out to False Bay to join Steve Benjamin, and Animal Ocean. The weather turned out to be absolutely perfect, for a day on the water. After launching the boat from Miller’s Point, we set off towards Seal Island to check out the seals. About 15 minutes into our trip, we spotted diving Gannets in the distance and decided to check it out. What we found however was a 1000 strong, pod of common dolphin! The water was white with moving dolphin, and the sound of 1000 dolphins echoed all around us. What and incredible experience! It didn’t stop there though however, after a stop at the biggest Cape Fur seal colony in the area, we then made our way over to Pyramid Rock for a dive with the Cow Sharks. The water was top to bottom visibility, pancake flat, and we were surrounded most of the dive by at least 15 Cow sharks, ranging from 1m to 2.5m. These impressive creatures let us swim amongst them for a good 40 minutes. What a day to remember! (Text from VACorps newsletter)

Volunteer Adventure Corps

I put this short video together to try show you what diving in Cape Town can be about. I also wanted to thank all the great people who share my life and passion for life, be it on the water or land. Live life to the fullest everyday…….

Have a look…

Mid March saw the freediving duo of the newly formed Ocean Encounters, 3x World Champion Fred Buyle and No fins dare devil William Winram arriving in Cape Town to a great weekend of weather. We headed out to the seal Duiker Island seal colony were we found cool 11C but clean water. We joined a playful group of 4 month old seal pups in the shallow secure waters near the island.

Fred Buyle with the seal pups of Duiker Island

William Winram with a playful pack of pups

These pups were born in Nov/Dec last year and seemed excited to play with the divers. It was time to warm up with some hot coffee while we searched for the next diving experience. It wasn’t long till I noticed a bird activity and a shimmering water surface a few kilometers offshore, it was a large pod of common dolphins!

Fred Buyle with a pod of common dolphins near Hout Bay

Attracted buy the possibility of riding our bow wave, they surrounded us. A magical experience right on our door step

The next day we headed to pyramid rocks to dive with the sevengill cow sharks. The light NW wind had brought in quite a bit of cloud cover so we dived while we waited for better lighting. The water was a massive 2 degrees warmer but slightly greener. With just about 10m vis, if I looked carefully I could see the sharks swimming on the bottom. The cowsharks did no disappoint with up to 15 sharks being present at the site.

Fred Buyle and William Winram with the Cowsharks

We dived until we were chilled to the bone and once again some hot coffee saved the day.
Considering the difficult ocean conditions we have been having lately the guys had a wonderful gap in the weather and some good diving.

I received this email a few weeks ago “Hello!  My name is Myfanwy Rowlands. I’m currently traveling on a diving and marine educational scholarship sponsored by Rolex and the Our World Underwater Society.  I was hoping to see whether my volunteering with your organization would be a possibility?…….” I had heard of the programme and was very happy and honored to be involved. How could I say no?,a chance to show some one around the city and ocean I enjoy so much, maybe she would be able to keep up!

A little history from the Our world – Underwater society scholarship’s website -
Each year the society awards year-long scholarships designed to expose a qualified young person to a wide range of experiences in various marine-related fields. With continued generous funding from the Rolex Corporation, the awards are now known as the Rolex Scholarships.

For 2010, three Rolex scholarships will be offered: one in Australasia, one in North America, and one in Europe. Each Rolex Scholarship provides a hands-on introduction to underwater and other aquatic-related endeavours for a young person considering a career in an underwater-related discipline. One scholar is selected from each of the three regions and each scholar spends approximately one year working side by side with current leaders in underwater fields. Each scholar travels primarily within his or her region, but may have opportunities throughout the underwater world. The range of experiences may include active participation in field studies, underwater research, scientific expeditions, laboratory assignments, equipment testing and design, photographic instruction, and other specialized assignments.

I wanted to give her a chance to see and meet as many people as possible, needless to say she hit the ground running. She arrived from Tasmania after a 23 hour journey only to find herself being taken to Dassen Island, a place she had never heard off and certainly not on the tourist maps. Here is what Von has had to say about some of her experiences with me in Cape Town so far (Source) -

Wow!  First blog update in awhile, sorry — you can blame Steven Benjamin, my awesomely over-achieving local Cape Town host, for that.  We’ve been on a whirlwind tour of Cape Town’s aquatic environments, and I’m going to post about them individually in the next few days!  Steven runs Animal Ocean, an all-inclusive ocean eco-tourism operation that offers personalized outdoor marine and aqua experiences.  Spearfishing, freediving, shark diving, photographic excursions — you name it, if it’s in the ocean in the Cape Town area, Steve’s probably an expert in it.   Let’s just say that today I had a bunch of 1.5m-long cowsharks swimming around my head, and I’m absolutely loving life.

29 Jan 2010

Right!  So I’ve got some backlogs to do, starting with the day I arrived in Cape Town, South Africa.  I was met at the airport by local dive and underwater guru Steven Benjamin, who operates Animal Ocean, which is an all-encompassing marine eco-tourism operation.  We had some breakfast, and then Steve whisked us off to Dassen Island with 25 University of Cape Town’s 2010 Zoology Honours students.  Dassen Island is a special place – it’s managed by the Nature Conservation, South Africa’s government environmental agency.  No one is allowed on the island without a permit, so we were very, very lucky to be able to go.  The island itself is a haven for bird life, including penguins!  The history behind the penguins of Dassen Island is tumultuous; because their eggs were harvested aggressively until the 1960s, their numbers are reduced now to less then 10% of what they were at the turn of the century

Dassen Island research accomadation tucked behind the dunes

Myfanwy Rowlands at Dassen Island

True Dassen Island locals....

Penguin wall

This picture shows the Dassen Island lighthouse and a portion of the penguin wall that was constructed years ago and encircles the entire island.  It was built to keep the penguins from building their nests too far inland and facilitate easier collection of their eggs.  It’s now breached in numerous places and the penguins have no trouble getting to the interior of the island.

1 Feb 2010

Steven Benjamin (my Cape Town guide and owner of Animal Ocean) and I returned from Dassen Island on Sunday, March 31st.  On Monday, Steve took me along on one of his dive charters to Duiker Island, home of a very friendly colony of Cape fur seals.

Cape Fur seal leaps from the water at Houtbay

They were magic to dive with, but seals always make me feel like an absolute robot underwater.  After the dive, Steve took us snorkeling to a little rocky beach just beyond the point of Hout Bay Harbor, because he wanted to show us the site of an abalone poaching operations.  The picture below shows the pile of empty abalone shells we found there.

A pile of poached and scraped abalone shells.

What happens is, abalone divers go outside the harbor in little rubber duck boats, collect the abalone and bring them to this beach, which is hidden from sight and around the point from Haut Bay slipway.  The poachers unload their illegally harvested abalone on the beach, stacked up in piles, before taking their now empty boats back to the slipways of Hout Bay Harbor, which are monitored for illegal abalone fishing.  Then the poachers hike over the point down to the beach, and carry the illegal harvest of abalone meat overland, thereby avoiding getting caught.  It’s quite a racket.

2 Feb 2010

The one day that should of been 6  !!!!

What an amazing day February 2nd was.   I’ll take you through the pictures below and explain the chronology that way. I tagged along with Steve Benjamin (Animal Ocean) on a dive charter to dive with a natural aggregation of seven-gill sharks, or cowsharks (as they’re called in Cape Town) just past Miller’s Point near Simons Town.  It’s an unbelievable spot, as the cowsharks are gathered there in significant numbers and they’re VERY curious… not at all shy of divers.  It was fantastic!  We had at least 7 sharks around us at any one time, and we reckon we saw about 20 total.

Sevengill Cowshark - Image by Sjimon de Waal

After the cowsharks, we stopped at the boat ramp at Millers Point to see the snoek boats coming in.  The picture below is of a man counting the snoeks as he tosses them in a bucky to be carried to market.

A good days catch of snoek

Then we stopped by Muizenburg beach, and were just in time to see the Treknet fishermen bringing in a fresh catch of yellowtail kingfish!  This type of fishing is a bit different from your average industrial trawler or purse-seiner…the whole community gets out on the beach to help pitch the nets.  It was fun to watch.

Trek net fishing on fish hoek beach

We left Muizenburg Beach and drove up Boyes Drive to the overlook of Muizenburg in False Bay.  From there, you can see Seal Island (remember that AWESOME series in Planet Earth that shows great white sharks breaching?  That’s Seal Island), as well as the entire stretch of Muizenberg Beach.  To our unbelievable luck, the Shark Spotter on duty, (her name is Vivian) spotted  a great white just moments after we arrived!

Von and Vivian watch a great white shark swimming in the surf zone

It was unbelievable.   I’ve shown the picture below fully scaled out and then zoomed in to give you an idea of perspective – the shark was about 2.5m-3m long.  The Shark Spotter program is a wonderful alternative to shark nets (which can be found all along the eastern beaches of South Africa, in Durban).  Shark nets “work” because they kill everything in their path, shark and fish and dolphin and seal alike.  The Shark Spotter program works, and eliminates the unnecessary slaughter that shark nets unleash.

And that was (most of) our day!  It was banner.  The days have been packed, and I’m still catching up – more to come.

3 Feb 2010

February 3rd was the day that Steve Benjamin (Animal Ocean) and I went up into the mountains to meet Jeremy Sheldon, Ph.D. student at the University of Cape Town.  Jeremy is doing his Ph.D. thesis on the streams and rivers of the Bain’s Kloof region, in the mountains Northeast of the Cape.  He’s comparing the ecology of streams that have been invaded with trout (100 years ago they were brought over and introduced for game fishing) to that of those streams and rivers where trout haven’t infiltrated.

Jeremy Sheldon happy doing field work

Tierhok Rivier

A gorgeous, gorgeous day of fieldwork in a beautiful place.  I’m now seriously considering studying river otters along with sea otters.

One of the Netherlands most acclaimed award-winning underwater photographers, Peter Voerhoog, traveled to Cape Town with the goal of photographing blue sharks for his latest book “Sharks, close encounters”.

Sharks, close encounters by Peter Verhoog

Here are some of the images he captured while diving with us in the Cape

Dusky Dolphins play in the cool Atlantic waters off Cape Town

Cape fur seals in Houtbay harbor

Steve Benjamin and Sevengill cowshark

Blue sharks investigate Peter off Cape Point

Cape fur seals playing off Duiker Island, Houtbay

Peter in tough conditions in order to get the blue shark images

I am looking forward to this inspiring book and am proud to have played a small part in it

Steve

Hey guys

Its been awhile since my last blog entry. I find myself this evening with so many experiences I want to share and I dont know where to start. I always find its best to show people what we’ve been doing. So below I have chosen a few images from the last few weeks. The images come from a range a photographers to whom I am grateful.

Chapmans peak panoramic by Goeff Spiby

This image was taken on a photographic trip on the Atlantic seaboard. It really shows the beauty of being under Chapmans peak and the scale of the mountain. The wind was howling with this bay being slightly protected. I had to position myself in the lee of the granite boulders to keep the boat steady.

Bull and dead pup by Geoff Spiby

The seals have been pupping on Duiker Island, not all make it. Here we found a bull seal resting on a small granite boulder lying right next to young seals corpse seemingly oblivious to it. In the water we found many dead pups, most being scavanged apon by giant petrols and seagulls, the strong winds and waves washing possibly washing them off the island.

Steve Benjamin filming for Charles Maxwell at Duiker Island by Jean Tresfon

Trying to capture the seals swimming in thick kelp was tough but once one finds a pattern in the seeming chaos of swirling seals we got the shots.

Swimming seal by Jean Tresfon

Here Jean captured the seal just as it darted “flew” away

Chapmans peak, Geoff Spiby

We were traveling along the base of Chapmans peak, mostly trying to stay out of the howling wind, when we arrived at my faverite crayfishing spot. This turned out to be a well know location to others on the boat. We jumped into the cold but clean water to see what could be captured. These anemonies are covering the granite boulders in the shallows . One can see the mussel zone at the top of the rock.

Chapmans peak ledges Geoff Spiby

This was taken at the same location as the last image but just a bit deeper. You can see the small crayfish that dwell in these crevases. That crack at the top of the image used to hold huge crayfish but not anymore. The photographer in the background is Mark Van Coller.

Dusky Dolphins by Peter Lambert

Dusky dolphin pod by Peter Lambert

On this day we encountered the local pod of Dusky dolphins as they were aggregating. The can be a very inquisitive species of dolphin and came to investigate the divers.

Jellyfish by Jean Tresfon

There have been an abundance of Jellyfish on our coastline latley, which make beautiful subjects. It has also lead to the appearance of many sunfish.

Jean Tresfon Sunfish

Sunfish by Jean Tresfon

It took me awhile to figure out how to get photographers close to these small sunfish, they just kept swimming away. The larger individuals seem to be less skittish and easier to work with, but also less common. We encountered up to 5 small individuals at a time and got extremely close in often dirty water.  Here Jean Tresfon captures the beauty of a sunfish in Table Bay.

Jean Tresfon and Sunfish by Geoff Spiby

Here one can see that these are small individuals and Jean tries to get a close up with his wide angle lens

Sevengill Cowshark by Steve Benjamin

Although not a pro image I wanted to mention the Sevengill sharks. They have returned in full force.  We have done several dives there in the last week and I am always blown away. On one occasion I had 13 in my field of view, from the bottom to about 8m in the water column.On another dive I found seal remains (flipper, fur and intestine), Iether a seal carcas washed in or the Sevengills got hungry.

Well I hope you have gotten an idea of what I have been up to. There are some fun project in the pipline so get in contact to see what is going on and how I can help

Cheers

Steve

I was alerted to an amazing event by a friend, Toby Esdar, who was catching crayfish in the area. He told me the water was black with fish, I had to have a look. I raced to Chapmans peak to see just what he was speaking about. I saw shoals of fish swirling in the bays below chappies as a few dusky dolphins and seals lunged to consume them. In particular we saw one pocket that had been separate from the main shoal and was the target of the predators. Jean Tresfon met me there and together watched.

Dusky dolphins work a baitball at the base of Chapmans peak, Hout Bay, Cape Town

Shoals of fish against the cliffs

I called Charles Maxwell and told him what was happening. He quickly mobilized and an hour later we were on the sea and heading towards the action. We found the shoals still in the same location but the dusky dolphins and seals had stopped feeding. The following images were taken by Jean Tresfon

Silver shoals and seal, Jean Tresfon

Shoal engulfs the cameraman, Jean Tresfon

Chappies and the shoal

Summers sun shines down on the shoal

Diving in the shoal

This is what Jean had to say :

” Yesterday at lunchtime I received a phone call from a friend to let me know that there was a lot of bird activity at Chapmans Peak. I drove out for a look and saw a huge baitball of fish up against the side. In the pic below you can clearly see the baitball in the centre of the picture, and in fact the entire dark mass above and to the left is also baitfish. The water was looking clean and we could see a few dolphins and seals smashing through the baitball and grabbing mouthfuls of fish.

I rushed home, grabbed my camera and dive kit and managed to be in the water within an hour of having first seen the shoal. Unfortunately it was too late for any predator action, as the dolphins had left and a few stuffed looking seals were swimming around lazily. Still a baitball in Hout Bay is not a common sight and I jumped in regardless. The shoal turned out to be anchovies and there were quite a few of them. The shoal was probably 60m long and 10m wide and it was incredible just to swim underneath it into the dark shadow and just watch the millions of fish moving in complete harmony. There were also a lot of Hottentot and Galjoen swimming around and I think they were feeding on the injured anchovies. ”

Steve Benjamin, Jean Tresfon and Charles Maxwell. Image by Roxy Towil

Another amazing day in Cape Town

We were joined by swimmer Peter Marshall, Swedish actor Peshang Rad and a Swedish actresses Melinda Kinnaman and Christina Samson.

Peter Marshall was visiting Cape Town after competing in the FINA world cup held in Durban, were he broke the world record for 50m backstroke with a time of 22.75. He had visited Mark Addison’s Shark park in Durban before trying his hand in the cooler waters of Cape Town.

The Swedish contingent of the day are performing a play in the city called Transit. These new divers took to the water with great enthusiasm and were not disappointed by the grace and skill of the Cape Fur seals

After the dive we headed over to the Shipwreck of the Boss400, climbed inside and explored. Have a look at the pics

Cheers

Steve

Peter Marshall, Melinda Kinnaman, Peshang Rad and Christina samson at Duiker Island

Melinda Kinnaman and Steve Benjamin explore the Boss400

Peter Marshall swimming with the seals

Peter Marshall - wrecked