Cape Town - We slip off the rubber duck, drop under the surface of the cold, clear ocean and cross over into a wild world. Hundreds of seals whizz past us, each one somersaulting and zigzagging in choreographed chaos.
I don’t know where to look because there’s so much to take in. Millions of bubbles sparkle in the cobalt water, as the acrobatic animals blow air through their nostrils. The older seals keep their distance, but their impressive size and speed are awe-inspiring to see. The seal pups are just a few months old and are the most playful, nibbling on my fins and wetsuit.
Some swim right up to my mask, smiling at me with their bulging eyes and a mouthful of sharp teeth and long whiskers. Others let me scratch their fur just for a moment, before darting off and returning to play again. A few jump out of the water into the air, crashing back down on top of us. It’s a game they never get tired of, and their enthusiasm is infectious.
I look across at my fellow snorkellers, and they’re enraptured by their own games with their own seals. Two seal pups bump into me by mistake, they too engrossed in their mischief.
“These are totally wild animals,” owner and boat operator Steve Benjamin of Animal Ocean said.
“But they’re completely comfortable with our presence here.”
A zoologist and ichthyologist, Benjamin knows the seas around Cape Town better than most. Since 2009, he’s taken thousands of people to explore underwater, giving them a close-up and personal experience with wild animals that is perhaps unrivalled in any of South Africa’s national protected areas.
The Cape Peninsula’s shores are protected, falling in the Table Mountain National Park Marine Protected Area, which includes six “no-take” zones that are off-limits to fishermen.
These waters harbour some of the richest and most diverse oceanic life in Africa, a result of the cold Benguela current mixing with the warmer Agulhas.
Everyone knows about the penguins at Boulders, but other examples include diving with huge seven-gill sharks off Miller’s Point, or watching great white sharks breaching near Seal Island in False Bay. Some of the most spectacular cold-water reefs in Africa are just a scuba dive away from the city centre.
But nowhere is this profligacy of ocean life more obvious and more safely accessible than off Duiker Island, where Benjamin takes visitors to snorkel with seals, a boat trip of about 20 minutes from Hout Bay harbour.
The furry animals lie on the rocks, basking in the sun, while hundreds more play in the seawater. Seal colonies on the peninsula have some of the highest concentrations of large wild mammals anywhere in Africa.
“There could be as many as 15 000 seals here,” Benjamin remarked.
“It’s amazing, isn’t it? Here we are, just a few kilometres from South Africa’s second-biggest city, and we are playing face-to-face with all these wild creatures in their natural environment.”
While the False Bay coast is warmer in temperature, the western side of the peninsula is colder, about 15ºC. Our thick wetsuits keep us warm.
“The cold water also tends to keep the sharks away,” Steve said.
At Seal Island in False Bay, great white sharks are regularly seen hunting seals, but on the western side of the peninsula at Duiker Island, there is little to worry about.
“We’ve never seen sharks hunt seals here, and we’ve never seen a seal in this colony with a shark bite.
“Because these rocks are shallow and surrounded by kelp, it’s hard for sharks to hunt seals here. This is as close to paradise as it gets for the seals.”
Two seal pups twirl around me. I’ve never seen such unbridled joy on an animal’s face. I get the sense they are laughing with me, or laughing at my cumbersome human swimming style.
I take a deep breath and dive down to follow them. My lungs burn and I realise I’m not a seal after all, kicking back to the surface and gasping for air.
Then I drop down again, to play once again with our friends the seals. - Cape Times
l Ramsay is a photojournalist focusing on southern Africa’s protected areas. For more information, see www.yearinthewild.com For seal diving, call 079 488 5053, or see www.animalocean.co.za