EricW
Registered
We have been traveling a lot for diving lately and wanted to share some of our experiences with others. By way of background, we live in California and dive locally in Monterey, but have been exploring some more locations off the beaten path.
In September 2025, we planned a month diving around eastern African and Maldives. We did a quick detour on a layover in CapeTown to take advantage of the diving in Simon's Town.
We dove with Pisces Divers - just a quick two tank morning dive - one in the kelp and the other on the reef.
For those who aren't familiar with the area, Simon's Town is where "My Octopus Teacher" was filmed. I imagine they are getting a lot of business these days!
The first dive in the kelp forest was really quite excellent. One highlight was seeing several gully shark embryos in a mermaid's purse - you could see the infant shark inside the pod by shining a light on it. Super cool.
We dive the kelp often in Northern California but I think that the kelp forest here really had much better marine density (and visibility! - though don't expect more than 5-8 meters). Lots of nudis as well and a shy shark swimming around (as well as an octopus of course) - highly recommend overall. The kelp dive site was Pyramid Rock.
I was less impressed with the reef dive - I probably would just do the kelp dive twice. Not as much to see when we were there.
We didn't bring our heavy duty 7/8 semidry ScubaPro wetsuits for this trip so rented - they essentially rent a 5mm with a hooded vest - much less warm than what I would typically use and I'd suggest not warm enough for 14C. Maybe they'll change that at some point - my daughter was shivering.
Overall a big thumbs up.
In September 2025, we planned a month diving around eastern African and Maldives. We did a quick detour on a layover in CapeTown to take advantage of the diving in Simon's Town.
We dove with Pisces Divers - just a quick two tank morning dive - one in the kelp and the other on the reef.
For those who aren't familiar with the area, Simon's Town is where "My Octopus Teacher" was filmed. I imagine they are getting a lot of business these days!
The first dive in the kelp forest was really quite excellent. One highlight was seeing several gully shark embryos in a mermaid's purse - you could see the infant shark inside the pod by shining a light on it. Super cool.
We dive the kelp often in Northern California but I think that the kelp forest here really had much better marine density (and visibility! - though don't expect more than 5-8 meters). Lots of nudis as well and a shy shark swimming around (as well as an octopus of course) - highly recommend overall. The kelp dive site was Pyramid Rock.
I was less impressed with the reef dive - I probably would just do the kelp dive twice. Not as much to see when we were there.
We didn't bring our heavy duty 7/8 semidry ScubaPro wetsuits for this trip so rented - they essentially rent a 5mm with a hooded vest - much less warm than what I would typically use and I'd suggest not warm enough for 14C. Maybe they'll change that at some point - my daughter was shivering.
Overall a big thumbs up.
