Article appeared in Divesite Magazine Spring Edition 2010. Writer Adam Cruise.

UNFORGETTABLE OLD SHOAL

There is a saying among South Africa’s scuba diving Old Salts that states: “If you can dive Aliwal Shoal, you can dive anywhere”. At any given season on any given day or hour when those freak winds that the coastal folk of Kwa-Zulu Natal call a “Buster” barrel in, Aliwal Shoal can turn in an instant into a treacherous maelstrom and if you happen to be crazy enough to try dive in such conditions the Shoal will give you something to forever remember her by. Ask me I know. As a rookie instructor I spent two years taking the uninitiated and the inexperienced out to sea at Aliwal. The launch alone was an experience never to be forgotten. Those same Old Salts had another proverb that proclaims there are two types of boat skippers at Aliwal; those that have flipped boats in the surf and those that are yet to. Twice I have had the misfortune of the boat flipping in the churning white bedlam beyond the mouth of the Mkomazi River and twice I lost all my gear and more than a little confidence in surf launches. Once the white water gauntlet was negotiated the seven-kilometre ride out to the shoal was often an exercise of intense physical endurance as teeth gritted, toes curled and knuckles whitened in the face of the forty minute salt-sprayed, wind-whipped, spine-jarring roller-coaster ordeal that frayed the nerves of the most level-headed. Sometimes as one approached the shoal waves could be seen breaking over Pinnacles, the infamous bit of shoal that has caused the complete demise of two ships and damaged countless others. Here the swells could be so big that when preparing to enter the water the boat rolls so precariously that the diver on the opposite side of the boat would, for a brief second, be staring down at you from a vertical position before the roles reversed and then it’s your turn to look precipitously down at the wide-eyed faces. Seasickness was as regular an occurrence as breathing. Everybody got sick including the skippers. They were so used it that I remember on one occasion a skipper briefly interrupted his countdown. He had paused in mid sentence, excused himself politely, threw up over board and nonchalantly resumed the count. Once in the water the ripping currents meant adrenaline rushed, ear-bursting negative descents into pea-soup visibility and often groups would get separated, with the odd straggler having to be picked up miles off the reef. The surge too could be vicious and those who had thought they would escape the chaos on the surface were ferociously hurled about the reef like a piece of tumbleweed. On days like this we would wonder what on earth made any sane person want to dive here but the Old Salts trotted out yet another Aliwal proverb that declared: “when she is bad, she is horrid but when she is good, the Shoal produces the best dives in the world”.

I had seen this phenomenon first hand with my very first two dives at Aliwal. I was doing a Wreck Specialty Course and the first dive to the wreck of the bulk carrier MV Produce, one of the two ships claimed by the Shoal, was much like I described above. We had anchored on to the reef and the current was so strong it took a gargantuan effort to pull ourselves down the anchor chain while our masks wobbled on our faces and threatened to be ripped off as if we were facing into a hurricane. The effort on the descent was enough to exhaust our air supply and no sooner had we reached the bottom at around thirty three metres we had to turn about and ascend, all the while clinging to the rope like a string of Tibetan Prayer flags fluttering in the wind. Yet the second dive the following day to the same wreck was so serenely sublime it was almost impossible to imagine it was the same dive. Overnight the conditions changed from tempestuous ocean to placid millpond. The surface of the sea had transformed from wild and grey to a deep indigo with little wavelets that sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. The current had vanished and we dropped easily to the Produce in crystal-clear water without having to use the rope at all. Once at the bottom we were confronted by the colossal rudder on the stern of the wreck that, thanks to the endless visibility we could make out in its entirety. The rest of the dive was a journey through scuba Nirvana. Shoals of Goldies hung like orange clouds against a deep blue background while large silhouettes of Brindle Bass lurked among the dark holds and bowels of the wreck occasionally moving out into he open and opening up their cavernous mouths to allow cleaner wrasse to rake their gills clean. In a hold in the bow was the ship’s massive spare iron propeller, the original brass one was removed some years prior but everything was big, the biggest wreck I had ever dived at the time. Even in calm seas and at a depth of over thirty metres one had to mindful of the surge around the edges of the wreck. A slight distraction could see a diver getting thrown against the sharp metal but we were well instructed and well briefed by the man who taught the wreck specialty course at that time.

Andy Cobb was, and perhaps still is Aliwal’s crustiest of Old Salts and the Shoal’s self-appointed guardian. Andy’s old friend Clive Holme was one of the fishermen who braved the wild seas on the 11^th August 1974 to safely rescue the entire crew of the Produce in their skiboats. A decade and half later Andy Cobb was doing a rescue of his own on the Produce. Salvagers had decided to blast off the brass propeller of the wreck but Andy rightly concluded that such an act would kill the entire population of marine life including the Brindle Bass that had made the Produce their home. These were the days when recreational diving on Aliwal was still at a fledgling stage and nobody really gave a hoot about the fate of the fish. Except Andy, who literally shackled himself to the propeller when the blast was about to take place. Andy’s brazen campaign caught the attention of the media and the salvagers were forced to acquiesce and instead cut the propeller at the shaft with special underwater arc-cutters and exercise that cost a fortune and caused the salvagers to run at a loss. Andy had single-handedly saved the rare Brindle Bass for the posterity of us future divers. He also single-handedly tackled the SAICCOR chemical plant upstream on the Mkomazi River that periodically pumped effluent over the Shoal. Andy’s tireless and protracted campaign resulted in SAICCOR pumping less and better treated effluent into the sea improving visibility for divers but, more importantly, improving the overall health of the Shoal again for our future benefit. Over the years and after hundreds of dives on the Shoal Andy has rubbed many exploitative business concerns the wrong way but he enamoured himself with the scuba divers and Shoal’s marine residents. The most notable of these was a huge Potato Bass that Andy named Clive after his friend Clive Holme. One of my all time diving highlights was Clive the Potato Bass rushing over to Andy like a pet Labrador welcoming his owner home from work. The rotund fish even allowed itself to be tickled under the chin by the equally rotund Andy.

Aliwal is most renowned for it’s Raggedtooth Sharks that congregate on the Shoal between June and October to mate. In light of the enjoyment of Wreck Specialty Course at Aliwal, I had signed up for Andy’s comprehensive Shark Specialty Course less than a month later in eager anticipation to dive face to face with the famous raggies. Aliwal once again taunted us with foul weather but then produced the goods same as before but this tome my expectations were by far exceeded. Paging through my old logbook the entry read:

Date: 30/08/1992

Dive no. 91

Max. Depth: 27m

Visibility: 15m

Location: Cathedral

Comments: Best Dive to date!

The dive saw us among no less than thirteen sharks male and female circling at different levels in the amphitheatre like a vortex. Andy had taught us to dive responsibly and discreetly, keeping low and away from the sharks so that we could admire them without disturbing them. The experience remains etched on my mind to this day as I will never forget those spotted coppery shapes cruising past me at eye level with rows of jagged teeth just a metre away but with barely an acknowledgement of our presence from the occupied sharks who were focused solely on finding a suitable mate. At the time I did not think that scuba diving could get better.

Yet it did, years later and once again it was Aliwal that produced the seraphic experience. I was collaborating with yet another Aliwal Old Salt, Mark Addison, on a documentary testing the effectiveness of Natal Sharks Board new anti-shark device, the Shark Pod. Mark Addison belongs to a family whose veins pulse with the salt of the sea. His father, Brent, is the oldest Salt of all. A Springbok spearfisherman in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, he is widely recognised as a pioneer of recreational scuba diving in South Africa. In the 60’s Aliwal Shoal was known as the “finest big-gamefish reef in South African waters” and to all intents and purposes it still is. Giant Kingfish, Wahoo, Bonito, Spanish mackerel and Sailfish are still common and are often seen by scuba divers on the eastern slopes of the Shoal. In 1972 Brent Addison and some colleagues from University of Natal’s underwater club constructed South Africa’s first and possibly only underwater habitat called HUNUC (Habitat University of Natal Underwater Club). The aim was to study the feasibility of placing a man in the sea for longer periods that diving would normally allow. It was a short-lived scheme because the seas were too rough but it got Brent a lot of attention. He came to be regarded as an “aquanaut”, a term that sounds incongruously antiquated to our modern ears but doubtlessly it was these early pioneering exploits of Brent Addison that put recreational scuba diving at Aliwal on the map.

Son Mark Addison continued where his father had left off and at the time of that Shark Pod documentary in the late 1990’s Mark was the leading and most accomplished dive operator at Aliwal. On this job the raggies had shown the usual apathy both toward us divers and the Pod so Mark, being the veritable spearfisherman he was, took us to a section on the south end of the Shoal called Eel Skins that he knew to be the favoured haunt of other sharks, notably Bronze Whalers and on occasion Tiger Sharks. Since we were filming and were bound by those impossible deadlines producers enjoy thrusting upon the crew we chummed the water heavily and within minutes of entering the water we were surrounded by sharks of all shapes, sizes and varieties. Bronze Whalers and Black-tip reef Sharks were buzzing aplenty beneath the hull of the boat, so were the raggies who now morphed from docile uninterested sharks to crazed vampires. On that dive we saw hammerheads, Zambezis and of course Tiger Sharks that cruised casually like mother ships into the melee to see what the fuss was all about. The blue-water dive boiled with sharks and instantly became my new best dive. Incidentally, the Shark Pod experiment was a flop. Evidently a hungry shark will stop at nothing to get food.

From those Shark Pod escapades Mark began to recognise that other sharks, in particular Tigers, could be as an effective, if not a better draw-card for divers to Aliwal Shoal. He set up Blue Wilderness Adventures and began marketing Tiger Shark dives for anyone brave or crazy enough to want to. They were an instant success and Aliwal, already rated as one of the world’s top ten, just got better. I had always thought the rough launches and big seas would keep the capricious foreign divers away from Aliwal. It was a domain only for us tough South Africans but the lure of the Tigers opened the floodgates and now Mark’s Tiger experience sans cage has won worldwide acclaim as one of, if not the most thrilling dive on the planet.

There is however a lot more to Aliwal Shoal than shipwrecks and sharks. The town Umkomaas, a misspelling of the Zulu word “Mkomazi” which means Whale Cow, a reference to the amount of Humpback Whales and their young that pass the shoal each spring on their way back to the south Atlantic. “Whale Season” coincides with “Raggie Season” and Humpbacks together with Southern Right Whales are often spotted breaching nearby as divers prepare to enter of exit the water and although rarely seen underwater the melancholy song of whales may accompany an entire dive. The northward journey of the whales a few months earlier also coincides with another great marine phenomenon, the Sardine Run. While some years the sardines only make a cameo performance and sometimes don’t even make an entrance at all, the sideshow, which is often better than the main event, continues for our benefit. It’s not just humans that wait patiently at the Shoal for the anticipated sardines. Bottlenose and Common Dolphin patrol Aliwal in huge schools while Bryde’s Whales lurk in the depths occasionally breaching right in front of a startled divers bobbing at the surface. Seabirds are also found hovering about. Albatross and Skuas skim the water with their wing-tips while gannets can be seen plummeting into the ocean whenever a ball of sardines is seen hovering too close to the surface

In summer Manta and squadrons of Devil Rays are common sightings cruising by in the blue mid-water as are Whale Sharks, which always provide an extra-snorkelling bonus to a dive. Down on the reef turtles are prevalent, both Loggerhead and Hawksbill drift in the current occasionally pausing to take a chunk out of a piece of soft coral. Sometimes even the odd Leatherback Turtle graces divers with their presence as it comes up from the inky depths o take a breath of air and if that wasn’t enough the smaller stuff is just as captivating. Little yellow Pineapplefish bob beneath the hundreds of overhangs and male Harlequin Goldies fight off other males for possession of their harems and small patches of reef no more than a square metre in size. There are a myriad of colourful nudibranchs and Shoal’s most famous endemic, the Tiger Angelfish (Apolemichthys kingi) discovered and named by another Aliwal Salt, Dennis King. King together with nudibranch expert Valda Fraser have collectively spent more time than any other diver on Aliwal Shoal recording and photographing the bountiful marine life. Dennis has produced two Fish ID books on the subject Reef Fishes & Corals of the East Coast of Southern Africa and More Reef Fishes & Nudibranchs, which he compiled in collaboration with Valda Fraser.

To think that with all this life Aliwal Shoal is not even a true coral reef. The Shoal is in fact a calcified prehistoric sand dune, a beach that was once above the waterline. Thanks to the calcification of the dune a few species of hard and soft corals, algae and seagrass have been able to attach themselves and exploit the mineral-rich Agulhas Current washing over. Over time the water sculpted the many recognisable caves, overhangs and nooks that provided shelter for many little reef fish and the warm water from Mozambique together with the occasional cold snap from the south have resulted not only in a population of otherwise tropical animals cohabiting with more temperate species but it has provided a unique environment for the evolution of one or two unique species endemic to Aliwal alone like the Tiger Angelfish and the little purple Harlequin Goldie.

Naturally Aliwal’s rich abundance and diversity has attracted marine biologists and scientists by the droves. The Natal Sharks Board has not only tested devices like Shark Pod here but more pertinently it’s resident scientists Geremy Cliff and Vic Peddemors have over the years garnered much of the current information we know about raggies and Tiger Sharks. Studies on soft corals, industrial effluent and other marine life as well as the tireless campaigning of Andy Cobb has finally prompted South Africa’s Environmental Ministry to recognise Aliwal as a tourist treasure trove and declare the Shoal a Marine Protected Area. The function of the MPA is both to limit the use of user groups like fishermen and spearfishermen and to manage scuba divers on the reef by issuing a permit system as well as introducing a code of conduct that dive operators have the responsibility of enforcing.

From a scuba divers perspective, if you have yet to dive Aliwal Shoal, it must immediately be placed right at the very top on the top of your bucket list and if you have had the great fortune of diving the Shoal you may agree with me that despite her bad days Aliwal Shoal rightly holds the title of one of the world’s top ten dives. To conclude though, I would like to add a little of my own salty cents worth and that is when Aliwal Shoal at her most consummate, my proverb would read: “There are the world’s top ten dive sites and there is Aliwal Shoal”.

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