Under the sea

All it takes is a mask and a snorkel: that’s your passport to an entirely new underwater world that’s just a few, deep breaths away. Depending on where you go, you’ll bump into a traffic jam of neon-lit fish flashing around an incredible variety of colourful coral, or great silver shoals, sea turtles, and maybe even a penguin or two.

Best of all, it’s experienced with a feeling of weightlessness, in almost complete silence.

Snorkeling or scuba?
A lot of people become nervous at the idea of snorkelling, but it’s really easy once you get the hang of it. All you need is a mask, snorkel and fins (don’t call them goggles or flippers, or the pros will know that you’re a newbie) to swim along the surface, face in the water, breathing through the snorkel.
If you dive down to get up close to something, bear in mind that your snorkel will fill with water, and you’ll need to blow hard to clear it once you reach the surface again, which is worth practising beforehand.

Scuba diving is more complicated. It requires a lot more kit and technique, which is why you need to have completed a course and become a qualified, card-carrying scuba diver before you’re allowed to hit the water.

If you’re up for it, however, scuba diving provides a serious thrill. You get to go right down to the sea floor along with the fish, and stay there for anything from 15 minutes to an hour or more, breathing from a tank on your back (scuba stands for selfcontained underwater breathing apparatus). Your equipment also allows you to control your own buoyancy, so, with practise, you will be able to hang weightless in the water, bobbing very gently with the ebb and flow of the waves far above you, in a silent, magical world where all you will hear is your own breathing, as you come serenely face to face with the fish.

Becoming a scuba diver
The main training organizations for divers that are represented in South Africa are National Association of Underwater Instructors (NAUI) and Professional Association of Diving Instructors (PADI). Although the qualifications have different names, they both offer diver training through different levels, from basic to advanced.

For many people the first level is all you need. It teaches you all the basic skills for safe diving: how to handle and check your equipment, enter (from land or boats) and exit the water, how to descend and ascend without injury, how to control your buoyancy underwater and on the surface, hand signals to communicate underwater, and what to do in an emergency. Some emergency techniques you’ll learn are how to clear water from your mask, how to share your air supply and how to retrieve your regulator hose and air valve (the mouthpiece through which you breathe) if it’s kicked away.

This open-water qualification allows you to dive anywhere in the world, to a certain depth. More advanced levels teach you to dive deeper and broaden your skills so you can dive at wrecks, in caves or at night.

If all you are really interested in is to experience what diving is like, many beach resorts and hotels near good diving areas offer a ‘resort course’, which is a quick introduction to basic diving skills that allows you to dive in the care of the resort’s divers, but nowhere else.

Where to dive and snorkel
South Africa is unusual in that we straddle two oceans, offering warm and cold-water options, as well as beautiful coral reefs along the Maputaland coast in KwaZulu-Natal.

You can snorkel anywhere along the coast where swimming is safe, but most ideal is fairly shallow water, preferably over rocky or coral reefs, or in rock pools, where there are plenty of interesting things to see. Dive sites close to the shore are also usually good for snorkelling too.

Dive operations flourish at good dive sites. ‘Buying’ a dive with a reputable operation is the best way to go. You have the benefit of diving with trained professionals who know the conditions, best dive sites, and where to get help if necessary, and you can almost always hire gear from them, such as fins, mask, snorkel, wetsuit, weight belt, air cylinder, buoyancy compensator (usually a sort of waistcoat that can be inflated or deflated as necessary), a regulator and hoses with two demand valves (the mouthpiece – one for you and an emergency spare for your buddy), and an instrument console that includes a depth gauge and pressure gauge.

Hiring is economical for an occasional diver, but it’s worth investing in your own mask that is a watertight fit on your face.

Bear in mind that you will need to present your dive card, to prove you are qualified. KwaZulu-Natal is one of the most beautiful diving areas, with warm water and coral reefs that start around Sodwana Bay (which has become almost too popular) and stretch north all the way to another diving hot spot, Ponta do Ouro in Mozambique.

Coral-reef fish are by far the most colourful and exciting, and you might be lucky enough to swim with a passing school of dolphins, or bump into a turtle, or even a ragged-toothed shark near Aliwal Shoal in the south. They aren’t usually dangerous if left alone, but don’t push your luck.

There’s good diving all the way down the Eastern Cape Coast, where you are still likely to see some tropical fish, to the Garden Route, which has some spectacular dives off Plettenberg Bay and in Knysna (where you might see a sea horse).

For those who like a boost of adrenaline, Mossel Bay and Gansbaai, near Hermanus, have become famous for cage diving with sharks. The risk is controlled: you go down just below the surface in a sturdy metal cage, which you feverishly hope will keep Jaws at bay.

As the water gets cooler towards the Cape Peninsula and around to the West Coast, the brightly coloured fish give way to reds and silvers – the kind you’re more likely to find on your plate – and there are an increasing number of wrecks, which make for interesting dive spots not only to see the ship, but also because many have created artificial reefs that attract fish.

If you don’t mind dams and quarries, there are inland dive sites at Wondergat (North-West), Badgat (Mpumalanga) and Bass Lake (Gauteng).

Image: courtesy of Die Burger