Day 6.

The plan for day 6 was to drive down to Hout Bay in the south west of Cape Town to go scuba diving with the South African fur seals in the morning, and then in the afternoon driving around to Boulders Beach to see the endangered African penguins before returning back home to Kuils River.


The meetup for the dive today at Hout Bay was at 10am but we didn't want to chance the notorious Cape Town traffic so we left Kuils River just after 7:30am.

Luckily traffic was fine though and we arrived at Hout Bay just after 9am with plenty of time to spare. After having a walk around the wharf I went over to the setup area to sign the waiver and get ready for this morning's dive.

My dive today was organised through Animal Ocean. Although Rianda had recently gotten her PADI openwater certification, they had a 20-dive minimum to go out as the water was often quite rough. The weather was absolutely perfect today though, and we really regretted her not coming.

A quick selfie after putting on my wetsuit. The water temperature was only 10°C today, by far the coldest I had been diving with just a wetsuit on!


After a quick briefing from our dive master, we boarded the boat for the short ride out to Duiker Island. After my new underwater Nikon failed on my last dive I had since bought a Gopro Hero 4 Silver during a runout sale and it was my first time trying it out.


On the ride out of the bay. Today there were only three divers, myself the dive master and another guy, with the rest just going out to do some snorkelling.


Duiker Island is a small, bare rocky island ~200 metres off the coast and was literally covered with the Cape fur seals lounging in the sun.

The scuba divers were first off the boat and into the water. Before the dive I was worried about the swell as it can get quite rough and is often cancelled when it goes above 4 metres. Luckily we had great weather today and the water was almost perfectly calm.


As we descended the super-curious seals quickly came to check us out. We were only diving at 6-8 meters so there was plenty of light with good visibility.


The seals definitely were not shy and would come up to you at full speed and peel off at the last minute!


I had been diving with seals in New South Wales, Australia soon after getting my dive certification back in 2001 and it was a real treat being able to do it again.


Flying left!


Checking out a small crayfish.


There was some wash from the waves/current, gently pushing you back and forth but not enough to carry you away.


Such an awesome experience!


A short clip from my Gopro of the curious seals in action:

A venomous South African box jellyfish swimming by.


There was also some kelp forests to explore.


Some of the fish were hiding from the seals in here too.


After Maldives, Malaysia and Iceland, South Africa was my fourth country for scuba diving this year and was definitely a place I would love to head back to to do some more.


One of the snorkellers just above.


This guy getting up close for a sniff!


Waving farewell as we head to the surface after a fantastic dive. I was starting to shiver near the end of the dive but nothing too bad.


Back on the boat. There was hot chocolate to drink and warm water to pour inside your wetsuit too to help warm back up.


And back onshore at Hout Bay just after 12pm where I met up with Rianda and her mum again and went for a walk along the wharf.


For lunch we grabbed a fish burger and chips.


Such a beautiful location especially with the perfect weather.


Feeding a portly seal for tips.