While on a holiday in Cape Town with David and some friends, I booked us a trip to Seal Island! David’s friend Adam and I were qualified divers and went on a wreck dive followed by diving with the seals. As we were diving in the Atlantic Ocean it was pretty cold…8 degrees Celsius and given that we weren’t qualified to wear dry suits we just had to wear super thick wet suits, a hood, gloves and boots and embrace the cold! We only lasted in the water for around 25 minutes given the temperature but we had the most amazing experience.
The visibility on both dives was very poor and murky. When we were doing our wreck dive I also really struggled with the pressures and equalising my ears. Although this is not sounding much fun at all, this is all the experience that comes with diving. Not every dive is perfect and it just shows how different the sea conditions can be!
Diving with the seals was incredible! This was a shallow dive in the kelp forests. It was still very murky however, we found the perfect spot which was clear enough to wait for the seals to dive down and play. They absolutely loved the bubbles from our regulators and when we span around, they copied us! At one point we had about 5 seals playing around us. We didn’t get too close as they can feel threatened and they will display their teeth as a warning, especially if you’re too close to their babies! Unfortunately I didn’t get any footage of these dives as I lost my GoPro during the seal dive, but they will always be an amazing memory!
While we were under the water having fun with the seals, David and the rest of our friends snorkelled with them.
I booked this diving trip through Into the Blue and they were brilliant! Would recommend them to anyone.
Our friend managed to get a quick video clip of a seal while snorkelling though! 🙂
Amy’s scuba diving travels 