Snorkelling in Walker Bay

By Jax Bath

This past week has brought with it some perfect underwater conditions which made for some incredible snorkelling!

There has also been an abundance of dolphin activity in the bay, with both Bottlenose and Common Dolphins being spotted from our shores.

As Autumn draws near sardines begin to move east and with them, large aggregations of dolphins and other predators. If you happen to find yourself walking along the cliff paths this week, be sure to keep your eyes out for disturbances in the water, most noticeably, a lot of white water. The white water is caused by rapid movements made by these social marine mammals as they feed, travel and interact with one another at the surface. The dolphins are a side note I thought would be worth mentioning as we are so lucky to be able to watch them from ashore, but this week’s ocean story once again takes place below the surface, where predators and prey play cat and mouse in the kelp forests.

This past week we had remarkably calm waters which meant we had fantastic visibility underwater. In Walker Bay, visibility is often super poor so when it cleans up a bit, it’s worth jumping in as often as possible (in this case, three times!) to explore our rugged coastline and the marine life. After arriving home from the concrete jungle of Johannesburg on Wednesday, I jumped into my favourite local kelp collection to see how my forest friends were getting along.

One of the most exciting elements of the week’s dives was finding the den of a particularly large octopus. As with any cryptic creature, often the easiest way to locate them is to find where they take their rest.

A large Klipvis gave this cephalopod away as it crept into a hollow at the bottom of a crevice festively decorated with urchins. I’ve since paid the eight-legged creature a few more visits and although he/she seems a bit shy from the offset, I’m hoping they’ll soon discover that this snorkeler means no harm.

Click on the newspaper below to read more (see page 15).