VETERAN dive master Karen Tredger put Shelly Beach on the map as a world-class dive site when she took 13 staff members aboard megayacht ‘My Octopus’ for a successful shark dive recently.
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All eyes were turned seaward when the 414-foot (126m), owned by microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, arrived to spend the day drifting offshore from Shelly Beach and there was much speculation about why it was there.
Karen served as dive master for two parties of six and seven divers from the yacht, who enjoyed some prime shark watching.
She explained that Beulah and Roland Mauz, owners of the local dive operation African Dive Adventures, had been contacted about the dive some time ago.
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“Apparently there are 45 people aboard the yacht but only 13 went for a dive. There are presently no guests aboard and the divers were all staff members. They were off West Africa, investigating a game reserve when they received a call from Mr Allen who asked them to sail to South Africa to investigate shark diving there,” Karen said.
They had first enjoyed a stopover in Cape Town where they had dived with blue sharks, before sailing along the coast towards Durban and stopping at Shelly Beach.
Picking them up from the yacht had been tricky but dive boat skipper, Spike van Vuuren, had taken it all in his stride.
“My Octopus’s engines were idling when we approached and she was facing north. She turned around so her stern was facing us and the engines were cut. Spike had to manoeuvre the dive boat up against the transom to pick up the divers from the drifting vessel. With the swells lifting the boats up and down it wasn’t easy,” she said.
In spite of her decades of experience as a dive master, Karen had been nervous and had checked and rechecked everything before picking up the divers.
“It really was so important for the South Coast that our VIP visitors were happy with the dive. I knew it would be such good publicity for this area,” she said. She needn’t have worried. Visibility was good, the water was warm, there were plenty of sharks around and the dives went swimmingly well.
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The divers encountered three schools of hammerheads and some Zambezi sharks and interacted with seven black tips.
Apart from the dive instructor from the United States who was a member of the party, the divers were from the United Kingdom.
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