Eastern Cape Scuba Diving

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Dive Type: Boat Dive

Depth: 18m - 26m

Diver Qualification: Advanced Diver

Also part of the Chelsea extended underwater area and very pretty with many gullies and pinnacles and indeed a wall similar to the Avalanche layout but not quite as pronounced. Once again an extremely beautiful part of the reef and three spots are dived on a regular basis, all as beautiful as each other and all known as Chelsea!

Smaller fish life is normally plentiful but when the water is cold they seem to disappear “into thin water”. Shoals of bait fish gather in the sand gullies as if waiting for the predators. This is a favourite trolling spot for the fishing boats and large numbers of seasonal Bonita, Geelbek and sometimes Yellowtail are caught. Shark visit this area frequently and can usually only be briefly spotted well away from the dive group.

The wall is indented with little gullies which penetrate through to the outer slope. Truly a great experience to follow the wall which is thickly covered with purple and brown hard coral and a kaleidoscope of colourful ferns, seaweed ad soft coral. Crustaceans are also plentiful, even the odd Crayfish is spotted.

Also check the sand bottoms in the gullies to see if there are any Rays buried and waiting for a small fish meal.

This reef is large and can be traveled provided the boat follows the surface marker buoy.

Noordhoek ski-boat club
http://www.nsbcpe.co.za/divesites.php

Specie List for Dive site: (PE-WS)-Chelsea
(Click on the links for more information)

Specie

Astrocladus euryale (Basket star)

Astrocladus euryale-1 (Albino basket star)

Austrofromia schultzei (Granular starfish)

Calliaster baccatus (Cobbled Starfish)

Flabellina funeka (Purple lady nudibranch)

Pseudodistoma africanum (Toadstool ascidian)

Pupillaea aoerta-1 (Helmit manteled keyhole limpet)

Spondyliosoma emarginatum (Steentjie)

Tritonia sp. (Soft coral nudibranch)

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