Even by Andy Murch’s standards his Big Fish Expeditions’ “South African Endemic Shark Diving Safari 2022” was memorable. Originally booked as a two-week trip to five locations, False Bay, Plettenberg, Gqeberha, East London and Aliwal Shoal, I extended it three times to dive Sodwana Bay, then False Bay a second time and having contacted Covid-19, to self-isolate in a Johannesburg airport hotel. The two-week trip became a month!
After diving our first location, Simon’s Town in False Bay, our group headed to Plettenberg Bay, 200 kilometres to the northeast. Plettenberg is similar to False Bay but has different corals and potentially different sharks. Unfortunately on our first day we experienced terrible visibility at Jacob’s Whale Rock, so we moved on, diving in very shallow green water in front of a seal colony at Robberg Nature Reserve. I have been lucky enough to dive with fur seals many times in multiple locations but this was a bit different. Seal diving visibility is normally poor but at 1 to 1.5 metres, this was particularly poor! And the seals were far “nippier” than I am used to. After a couple of particularly strong nips, I decided to abort the dive.
Next day we dived Dolphin Reef and for my 4000th dive, Robberg Point. As Andy’s shot of me shows, the water was still green so afterwards we packed up and headed north to our next destination, Gqeberha.