Dive Site Series #1: Quarry
The cache, a small, camo-taped tablet pot, is just above a small rocky inlet about 200m south of Glencairn Quarry (a large old sandstone quarry on the east side of Elses Peak which closed in the late 1970s) and close to a popular whale-watching and angling site.
To access the cache location:
Park @ S 34 09.384 E 18 26.135 at the top end of the beach access road and parking area. Then make your way through the gate gap in the fence, and down across the rail tracks to the cache location. This is hidden from observation from most directions but you may need to watch out for angling muggles out on the rocks to the south-west.
The cache was placed in recognition of AndyT1's cache GC2T9T0 Glencairn Quarry Reef which archived on 3/12/16 after 81 finds. It was the most northerly of a memorable and notably well-prepared 14-cache series published simultaneously on 24/12/2011 - to the great excitement of local cachers who in response feverishly assembled a pre-dawn FTF mission! The mission was only partially successful with 3 FTFs - a certain early bird CapeCCR having nabbed the other 11 some few minutes before!
The aim of the series is to highlight the many great diving opportunities available in this area (not yet well known as a notable diving destination) and to draw attention to the wonderful local marine biodiversity.
The original series was not numbered and the current numbering is based on the sequence of caches running north to south. As at March 2018, 7 of the original 14 caches have been archived and are in the process of being replaced by new caches at nearby locations. Thanks are due to AndyT1 for kindly agreeing to the use of his excellent original cache descriptions, which described the dive sites and featured local 'critters', as reference material in preparing the new cache descriptions.
The key resource material for divers wishing to dive these sites is the excellent Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay which gives thorough and comprehensive general information and links to specific information for most of the numerous individual dive sites covered. The web-site is a mine of information on the various underwater aspects of the peninsula and bay and is well worth a read even by non-divers (such as myself).
Dive Site Description
The site is an inshore rocky reef, called simply Quarry but aka Glencairn Quarry Reef, and consists of sloping ramp-like ridges approximately
perpendicular to shoreline (roughly north west/south east) extending out for some 250m with occasional sandy pockets. The site is quite shallow (average 7m, max 10m) but this means good light, stunning colours and therefore is ideal for photography. This site is easily accessible by shore entry.
The edge of the entry ledge is ~1.5-2m high, but most of the reef is flatter. The reef runs out offshore, and then after a sandy patch there are rocky reef outcrops with sand between, and further out some areas with pebbles, Further north is similar but flatter. It is not a spectacular site, but provides substrate and shelter for a very diverse range of marine organisms.
Close inshore there are sparse kelp forests with occasional red bait, lots of bushy corallines and quite a few urchins on the flatter areas. The walls and overhangs support a far wider variety of life. Further out, the sandy areas are fairly bare, with buried golden sea cucumbers and long tube fanworms, a few plough shells and long-siphoned whelks.
The deeper reefs have gorgonian sea fans, Mauve sea cucumbers, lots of common feather stars and a few elegant feather stars. The pebble beds among the deeper reefs have a few cerianthids, The flatter reefs to the north have red-chested cucumbers and colonial ascidians in moderate numbers.
Other species seen here include spotted bull rays (Pteromylaeus bovinus), Spanish dancers (Hexabranchus sanguineus) swimming in the open water, scorpion fish and many different types of nudibranchs, hermit and sponge crabs on the sea fans.
For more information on this dive site see here.
Featured Critter: Cape Dorid (Hypselodoris capensis)
This is a species of sea slug, a dorid nudibranch – a marine gastropod mollusc - which occurs on both
sides of the Peninsula and around the South African coast. It has a white body with smooth skin and is found on rocky reefs from the intertidal zone to at least 20m deep. They usually feed on a pale blue sponge and can reach a length of 50mm. For more info see here.