Cape Town Crayfish Diving Outings
Cape Town Crayfish Catchers take interested people on accompanied crayfish diving outings on the Cape Peninsula. We will teach you how to dive or snorkel for crayfish, how to judge the Cape sea conditions, and where to go, so that you can safely dive or snorkel on your own in the future. It is an ideal activity if you already enjoy watersports.
We don’t go out on boat diving expeditions. This is an active watersport and requires some basic fitness. You need to be able to swim.
Crayfish diving is a fun Cape watersport that costs virtually nothing compared with many other watersports such as kitesurfing, kayaking or sailing.
See How to dive for crayfish in Cape Town
Who we are
We are three qualified scuba divers, with PADI advanced licenses. Additionally two of us are lecturers with extensive teaching experience.
We are all competent in the sea, both with scuba kit and free, snorkel diving and other watersports. So you are in good hands.
Contact Us
Tel: 082 820 0521
What you will need to do before the day
1) Go to your nearest post office and get your crayfish licenses. I suggest you don’t leave this until the last minute, as I’ve encountered post offices that have run out of licenses. I’d phone up front to check if they have licenses in stock as well.
2) Book and collect the following kit at Orca Dive Shop in Claremont
5 mm long john,
5 mm wetsuit top (long sleeves and integral hood)
gloves (must have)
booties (not strictly necessary depending on your ability to deal with the cold. I don’t dive with them, Jon and Candy do, but probably better to have them).
weight belt and weights
fins
mask
snorkel
a bag to put your crayfish in (you can probably share one or two bags between the three of you).
On the Day
We will check the weather and swell forecasts and give you a prognosis before the day as to whether the conditions are looking good. We’ll confirm the sea and wind status on the morning around 7.45 am. Sometimes the weather forecast can predict marginal conditions (this isn’t an exact science), and in that case we will still go out on the chance that the sea conditions at Cape Point or Scarborough will be OK.
You can either meet us at the proposed dive site (which we will select based on the weather/swell information), or in Claremont which is where we set off from.
We will ask you to sign an indemnity.
We will run you through the theory: explain how to snorkel & dive, where to dive, what to watch out for in the ocean, how to gauge conditions, how to judge where the best place is to dive and more.
Then we’ll all go out on a snorkel dive and we’ll be showing you what to do the whole way.
The dive can last anything between 45 mins and 90 mins depending on the sea conditions. If the conditions are rough, you get exhausted quite a lot quicker. Depending on how we feel after the first dive, we can consider a second dive.
This one day watersports trip ought to set you up to go on your own dives in the future if you wished.
The Cost
R 280 per person only payable if the sea conditions are fine for diving and we do the actual snorkel and dive.
Note
If the dive takes place in Cape Point, we just need to alert you that you will need to pay the park entrance fee. Wild Cards aren’t valid for crayfish diving.
