31 March 2021
23
#ALLOVEROVERSTAND
Exploring Aliwal Shoal in KZN By Jax Bath
T
his week’s underwater adventure takes place 6 hours south of Sodwana on the world renowned Aliwal Shoal. The south coast of KZN is where I spent most of my seaside holiday’s growing up. It’s a stunning part of our coast, lined with tropical forests and rolling hills. Aliwal Shoal is about an hour away from our family holiday home, so I set out nice and early to arrive at the dive center at around 6:30.
pod of Bottlenose Dolphins were moving past us, only around 10m away. These incredible creatures were unperturbed by us, though the little ones did give us a quick once over as they past by. It’s important to note that swimming with whales and dolphins is not permitted in South Africa and that if you are lucky enough to find yourself in a similar position, that you give the animals their space and do not harass them. After this breathtaking experience, I would have been content to end the dive, but we all had over 100 bar worth of air left and there was so much more in store.
Once we were all reaching the low on air safety markers, we began our ascend, stopping at 5m for 3 minutes as an extra safety precaution practiced on all dives. Whilst hanging in the middle of the water column. We were lucky to encounter some Devil Rays flying through the water. These rays are related to the Manta Rays and also feed on Plankton.
Gear was organized and tested and within half and hour we were making our way through some precarious surf. Here, the boats are first dropped into the river before they make their way out into the area where the waves meet the shore. The sets were coming in strong but after only 2 attempts we made it to the backline and then travelled towards our dive site.
According to the Dennis King Reef guide, they are not all too often encountered by divers, which made this an awesome end to an unbelievable dive. If you’re a keen scuba diver who has not yet ventured to the KZN South Coast, I couldn’t recommend it highly enough. Our next megafauna extravaganza came in the form of not 1 but 4 turtles on this dive. I spotted the fist turtle whilst peering under a crevice. This little guy was munching on something below the rocky overhang, and was being outed from his or her position by the persistent surge in the water. We got a few lovely looks at this pretty chelonian before scouring the reef once more. Again, I had a look into a little overhang to find a massive turtle. As we arrive, we readied ourselves before dropping and descending into a greenish haze, a far cry from last weeks crystal clear blue hues further up the coast. The reef here is perhaps not as aesthetically pleasing as Sodwana with its coral gardens, but I was soon to discover that the life it holds is truly out of this world. As we dropped down to the sandy bottom surrounding the reef, our first sighting for the day was a Honeycomb Ray.
This big beauty had decided to take a nap, anchoring itself in a little cove and dosing soundly as we watched. This was an amazing thing to witness, an animal that takes its breath above the water finding some rest below the surface. We went on to encounter two more turtles feeding and travelling, by far the most I have seen on any dive.
Until next time!
We watched as the ray enjoyed a rest on the bottom before beginning our exploration of the site. My next spot was a tiny sea slug, an Ocellate phyllidia Nudibranch making his way along the bottom in search of a sponge to munch on. This dive had the perfect combination of mega fauna and macro life. From a sting ray to a nudibranch to a sighting that has been a lifelong dream.
Bluefin Travelly (Kingfish) were our next larger species, with a school passing above us as the visibility decreased slightly in our dive. They reach a size of over 1.2m in length and are known to travel in small groups.
After the nudi, we moved along the reef, taking in the sights of several species of Wrasse, many Moorish Idols and some feeding Surgeon Fish. The highlight of the day was however what happened above. I’d sensed movement in the water column a little while a way from us and to my hearts delight, I saw something move in the way only a mammal would. For the first time in my life, I was about to encounter dolphins underwater! A small
They sometimes hunt along the reef with other fish species in a practice known as nuclear hunting. There were a couple Rock cod hanging out on the dive too, with this dive yielding by far more mega fauna than any previously. The small fish were however just as much of a delight. The wrasse with their luminous tones swimming by and the Surgeon Fish that would sneak into crevices far too small for them to find themselves a bite. We encountered a single anemone with a Clownfish, had Schooling Coachman filling the water column and even a Bright Yellow Trumpet fish made an appearance.
