Aliwal Reef, Durban, South Africa

[sussexsubmarine]

Due to being in Johannesburg for work this week, I took the 50 minute flight to Durban to dive on Aliwal Reef in Umkomaas. The cost of the flight from Joburg is about £22, but if you choose to drive the several tolls along the route come to considerably more than that and it will take around 6 hours.

Umkomaas is a small village dominated by diving operations about a 20 minute drive from Durban airport. I dived with Aliwal Dive Charters, which is run by two English ex-pats. We visited during a long Bank Holiday weekend in South Africa.

The operation was very professional and the boatmen in particular need a medal for even considering getting through the shorebreak. The reef itself lies about 5 km off the coast. The water temperature was around 18 - 19 degrees and the air temperature is around 24 degrees in April/May.

Transport to the launch area is very a collection of 4x4s that take you from the dive operation to a small river inlet, about 1 km. You enter the RIBs in in the river inlet which is calm and flat, in contrast to the pounding surf on the shore a mere couple of hundred metres away. There is no requirement to load you kit on the 4x4 or on the boat, the crew take care of that all for you.

Due to the size of the swell, divers are required to wear lifejackets when going through the shorebreak. The RIBS then hammer as fast as they can into a holding area just outside of the breaking waves. 5 or 10 minutes can pass bobbing up and down while the boatman looks for a gap in the waves. The boatman are very experienced in this, with each one doing this several times a day. Saying that a RIB overturned while we were there and resulted in the hospitalisation of the boatman and several of the divers.

As a side note, Durban hospital is very well equipped and has a chamber

There then follows quite a ride through often quite large swell out to the dive site. The reef itself is quite large and offers several different diving sites.
I was hoping to dive The Produce, a Norwegian bulk molasses tanker that struck the Northeast Pinnacles of the reef in 1974. My buddy and I have over a thousand dives between us but unfortunately we we consistently buddied with groups of Open Water divers and The Produce is more of an advanced dive - it turns out all the experienced South African divers head to Mozambique for long weekends.

The location of our first dive was on Chunnel. We entered the water in quite a strong current and descended to around 7 metres. The conditions for this whole dive could only be described as a 'washing machine' - the surge was unbelievable. I spent the first twenty minute eating my air supply as I was laughing so hard through my regulator. Each wave would move us up to 5 metres in either direction. During some parts of the dive the current was extremely strong and it was a hard slog to get around some of the pinnacles. During the dive we saw several raggy tooth sharks and nudibranch.

We ascended for our safety stop up the buoy line to discovery that the bouy was being held 5 metres under the water by the two divers clinging to it for dear life. I grabbed hold of the line just under them for a couple of seconds to clear a grab gained during swimming against the current. I then completed my stop in open water and then ascended.

Our second dive was on Raggies Cave. Even though the surf was much heavier on this second dive, the conditions could not have been more different under the water, this was also helped by the fact that this dive was closer to 20m. There was plenty of opportunities to look under the rocks. Under one of these we saw the largest turtle I have ever seen - by a factor of four or five. He was massive, dwarfing my 5'10". The rest of the dive was pleasant, as was the ascent.

Our third and last dive was on Inside Edge, this again was a dive around 20m and the current had picked up. This was a very fast paced drift dive with no need to paddle what-so-ever. Some nice potato wrasse and box fish with the occasional glimpse of a larger shark in the blue.

In summary, Aliwal Dive Charters were a friendly and professional bunch (despite one of the boatmen smoking while filling the petrol cannisters on a RIB!) and the dive offered some different wildlife that you would see in the Pacific or Red Sea.

If you're in South Africa and can take a couple of days to get to Durban it is definitely worth doing - now I've got business in the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands coming up, so I'd better brush off my drysuit...

James

[Cussy]

James,
That brings back some good memories. I was there on business three years ago and did the same (did you fly on that budget airline with the comedy safety announcements?). Thing I remember most was the boat trip away from from the beach, waiting for a break in the surf - wild ride. It's a good setup there.
Rob
PS don't want to rub it in, but the Produce is a good dive, as is the Nebo.

[PeeBee]

I'm off to SA on Sunday evening on business and am planning on getting in 2 days of diving the following weekend, rather than take the trip up to Aliwal (I want at least a week when I do go) I'm planning on going down to Gansbei (sp?) to see if I can find any sharks. The Sunday trip is already booked up but I still have to persuade the clients that they won't get any work out of me on Saturday either

[troc]

Originally Posted by Cussy

(did you fly on that budget airline with the comedy safety announcements?)

Mango is the one I suspect you mean, I flew them from Jo'burg to Durban but I then drove down to Shelly Beach to go diving on Protea Banks for Tiger sharks

Protea Banks and Shelly Beach are a similar dive experience to the Durban area in that the RIBs are beach-launched through swells etc (bloody good fun). I stayed in a small apartment with views over the beach, called "Breakerviews" which is also 2 minutes walk from the launch site and dive centre. I dived with African Dive Adventures who also organised the accommodation (all by email, very easy and friendly) and were professional and a friendly bunch who I would happily recommend and use again. Nitrox is available.

I did a couple of normal dives and a baited dive. The normal diving on Protea Banks tends to involve a negative entry, levelling off at 35m, just above the banks and then a drift (can be quite fast) dive with a fair time at depth (some deco can be racked up if on air) to look for Tigers, Hammerheads etc with a dive lasting 40 minutes or so. The water was 26 degrees in March btw.

The baited dive was different. We went out in the RIB, and then motored around in an area, trailing a bucket of fish-heads, sardines and sardine oil (and their secret ingredient - whale blubber from a sperm whale that washed up dead on the beach some time ago) to wake up anything in the area and then dropped the bucket off on a 10m line with some large floats and waited. After 10 minutes or so the bucket started bouncing about and then got dragged away, like something from jaws!

We hauled the bucket back and could see a large Tiger and the large hole it'd bitten in the bucket. We hauled the bucket to the surface (the shark followed....) and then added a second, undamaged bucket whilst we kitted up. As soon as the bait was back in the water, we entered and then gathered at 10m depth and around 10m from the bucket and waited.

After a while the shark returned and started circling us and the bait, coming to within 50cm or closer (touching distance). Eventually it decided we weren't dangerous and went back to eating the sardines. We stayed in the water with this shark (and others) for around 40 minutes, getting closer to the bait as it got less nervous but always staying together and giving it a large escape space (we were 5 divers) so it was never crowded.

Eventually we had to leave the water as we were feeling chilly but it was an awesome dive.

Apparently this particular shark was known to the dive centre as being one that would regularly eat their buckets as well as the fish!

[sussexsubmarine]

Originally Posted by Cussy

did you fly on that budget airline with the comedy safety announcements?

I flew an airline called 1 Time, which I think is a great name.

Do you only fly with them 'one time' because the plane crashes are just because the service is bad. To be honest I slept most of the flight as I'd just had a 10 hour flight from Heathrow with a baby next to my ear.

James

[JasonP]

I'm planning to get a couple of days diving in Aliwal in October before driving up the coast to Sodwana, so any recommendations in Sodwana would be gratefully received.

I did a dive at Protea. The dive two hours before, they'd seen a tiger and 4 bulls. We saw jellyfish, lots and lot of jellyfish. Can't win them all.

Jason

[sussexsubmarine]

Originally Posted by JasonP

I'm planning to get a couple of days diving in Aliwal in October before driving up the coast to Sodwana, so any recommendations in Sodwana would be gratefully received.

I am still in the Joburg office, so I will ask around and post here if anyone has any suggestions.

James

[RobA]

James,

Glad you enjoyed it! Did you see any "Crayfish"? These are about the size of Lobsters, have no claws! Its illegal for Scuba divers to catch them, so they wander about the Nebo wreck with utter disregard for visiting divers!

Jason - Sodwana Bay Lodge will do a pretty good package on Accommodation, meals and Dives! Great thatch roof cottages set around a swimming pool! As for diving, the further reefs are obviously in better condition, creatively named 5mile and 7 mile reef! Quite shallow, so a fair bit of "surge"

Rob

[chrisch]

We plan to do Cape Town later this year. My company have just opened an office there. The diving sounds great - thanks for the report. Probably a bit far for us to go. There are some great wrecks in False Bay so that's our target - weather permitting.

Chris

[Cussy]

Originally Posted by chrisch

There are some great wrecks in False Bay so that's our target - weather permitting.

Isn't that where they get some BIG fish