Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay/Blousteen Ridge

The dive site Blousteen Ridge is a shoreline rocky reef in the Rooi-els area on the east side of False Bay, near Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa.

Position
A ridge of rock close to and parallel to the shoreline a couple of hundred metres to the south west of Blouklip.
 * S34°16.497' E018°49.924' (just outside the gap in the ridge)

This site is not in a Marine Protected Area. A permit is not required.

Name
The name "Blousteen Ridge" describes the shoreline landmark for the site.

Depth
Maximum depth is about 17 m. Average depth about 9 m.

Visibility
Visibility is likely to be similar to the other Rooi-els sites, but may be better as this site and Blouklip are more sheltered. 6 m would be considered good, but more is possible after an upwelling.

Topography
The site is the vicinity of a rocky ridge which runs parallel to the shoreline, with a gully between it and the shore. There is a gap in the ridge which is deep enough to swim through, and the north east end of the gully is also open to the sea. Most of the site is to seaward of the ridge. The bottom is rocky reef of the same bedrock as the ridge, with boulders of the sandstone from higher up the mountainside.

Bottom is sandstone reef where visible, with scattered boulders: small further out, larger towards shore. The shore wall is very steep from about 10 m deep on the outside of the ridge, with slight overhangs.

The longshore gully is quite deep at about 5 to 6 m in the centre except at the eastern end where boulders partially block it to within 2 m of surface.

Geology: Nearshore ridges appear to be Graafwater sandstones. Deep reef (flat) appears to be dark grey sedimentary rock of the Tygerberg formation. There are also boulders of lighter sandstone from the overlying Table Mountain series. Strike is more or less parallel to the coast (east-west), Dip is about 45° to the south.

Conditions
The site is exposed to waves from the north west and to a lesser degree from the south west, so should be dived when the swell is low and the wind is not from the west. It is more likely to be good in summer or at any other time when there is low south west swell and the wind has been blowing from the south east. The site is reasonably protected from south easterly winds, and they will not push up much of a sea as the fetch is short.

This is an area which sometimes has upwellings, caused by strong south easterly winds blowing for a long period, which sometimes causes cold clear water to rise to the surface. These conditions do not usually last more than a few days.

Get in
Only known to be accessed by boat. There may be a path down from the road, but it will be a long climb. The site is about 15 km from Gordon's Bay harbour or about 3.3 km from Rooi-els slipway if you are a local resident.

It could also be dived from a shore entry at Blouklip. This requires a fairly long walk down to the shore and a swim of about 400 m to the site.

Marine life
A large variety of reef animals have been seen at this site. These include a number of species of nudibranch and other gastropods, cuttlefish, Several species of anemones, and sea fans, Feather stars and other starfish, Colonial and solitary ascidians, various sponges, in both encrusting and upstanding forms, false corals, flatworms, Rock lobster, rock crabs and amphipods.

Fish seen here include large rays, shoals of Hottentot seabream and Panga, blennies, Galjoen, Rocksucker and Two-tone fingerfin.

Photography
This is a good site for macro and close-up photography as there are a large variety of colorful animals to be found. Macro will require flash, and wide angle work will usually need external flash.

Routes
No particular route recommended.

Hazards
No site specific hazards recorded.

Skills
No special skills required.

Equipment
No special equipment recommended.

Nearby


Back to the Alphabetical list of sites, or list of dive sites in the Rooi-els area

Other regional dive sites:
 * Dive sites of Table Bay and approaches,
 * Dive sites of the Cape Peninsula west coast
 * Dive sites of the Cape Peninsula east coast
 * Dive sites of False Bay offshore and approaches


 * Fresh water dive sites of the Cape Town Metropolitan Area