Diving Cape Town

Staff · Issue 64, Jan/Feb 2012 · pp. 55–60

Products mentioned: Nikon D-200, Nikon D-7000, Sea & Sea housing, Subal housing, Nauticam housing, Nikon SB-800 strobe, Inon Z-240 strobe, Nikon 10.5mm lens, Nikon 60mm lens, Tokina 10-17mm lens

To the cursing Portuguese sailors battling to contain the wind in their fragile sails, it was the Cape of Storms. Their king, thinking of the wealth a sea route to the East would bring, named it the Cape of Good Hope. Subsequent explorers fell in love with its vertiginous mountains and shaded valleys and called it the Fairest Cape. Botanists studying the local vegetation, astonished by the variety and uniqueness of the plants, proclaimed it the smallest of the six known floral kingdoms, the Cape Floristic Region. Underwater, though no-one has yet given it a name, the wonderland unfolds even further. Simply put, Cape Town is one of the most fascinating places to dive on earth. It combines really impressive megafauna with an astonishing array of invertebrate life, as well as soaring granite reef topography, kelp forests and ghostly wrecks, much of which can be reached by shore entries. On …