Issue 1 - Rocking at Rocky Bay

The reefs off Rocky Bay, mainly known as Landers Reef, are a diving paradise. We experience a large and varied fish-life on a weekly basis and together with a topography which consists of many walls, crevices, caves and swim-throughs, this must make this one of the top diving spots on the coast. While Aliwal Shoal is widely known and dived by a great number of divers on a weekly basis, the reefs off Rocky Bay remain relatively quiet throughout the year. The main reason for this is that many of the best dive spots lie between 26 and 34 metres in depth, which puts them out of reach of the novice diver. This has resulted in dive operators being unwilling to set up an operation which would only cater for advanced divers. As a result, divers need to own or pre-hire all the necessary equipment and to have their cylinders filled prior to arriving at the launch site. This pre-supposes that a skipper that knows the reefs and is willing to take his boat to Rocky Bay for a launch has been pre-arranged. Needless to say, very few dive groups make the effort to do this on a regular basis.

To those of us who dive here every week-end, the fact that we are most times the only ones diving on the reef gives us the feeling of diving on our own piece of paradise. We take videos on each and every dive and share the experience with whomever else happens to be at the ski-boat clubhouse after each dive, while carefully guarding the location from the local fishermen.

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