The day I went scuba diving with seals

Have you ever wondered about the phrase “dogs of the sea”, and what it actually means?  I went seal snorkelling in Cape Town, and was lucky enough to find out!

Starting the day with a short boat ride along Cape Town’s magnificent coastline, a salty breeze wiping the sleep from my eyes, the boat ventured to one of the several Cape Fur Seal colonies for our day’s dive!

Upon the rock lay hundreds of the seals – some small, some large; some young, some old… and several plump as the dive boat’s pontoons!  On land they looked awkward, clumsy, but already from the boat I could see the early-risers darting through the waves and twisting through the kelp beneath us!

Already eager to start, we quickly donned our scuba units and fitted on our fins, and then with a cheery smile our skipper counted us down.

“Three, two, one… GO!”

And backwards we rolled…

Immediately after breaking the surface of the water, our group of divers whipped out their cameras and started clicking away!  The Cape Fur Seals are delightful, entertaining, and most certainly the “dogs of the sea”!

On scuba, I had the opportunity to dance and play with these incredible creatures, as they bark into your bubbles and pull at your fins, and several of the pups play tug of war with fronds of kelp whilst you animatedly dive beside them!

Cape Town’s oceans are known to be cold, but amongst the antics of the seals, and the thrill of their zest, I barely noticed the thickness of my suit and the gloves on my hands, instead becoming one with the ocean, and diving with (almost) as much elegance as the seals around me!

Together the seals and divers twisted and danced, posing for photos and showing off their diversely varying degrees of flexibility!

Coming up to the surface 50 minutes later, Cape Town greeted me with a bright blue sky and a welcoming summer sun, whilst the seals still in the water continued to entertain and delight!

An unforgettable memory and once-in-a-lifetime experience; scuba diving with the Cape Fur Seals in Cape Town is definitely not to be missed!