Kelp Forest – so you realise I’m in cold water, right? Since qualifying, my diving has been mostly warm water dives, wearing as little as possible. Feeling unrestricted and exactly like a mermaid. In the Atlantic however, I need to gear up in a full wetsuit with a hoodie and all. Since my diving is focussed on warm water, I have not bought my own full wetsuit yet, so I gear up in a rental which can’t be a perfect fit .

It seems inevitable that air gets stuck somewhere in the wetsuit and I need a hand down to three meters to enable me to do a normal descent. I opened the zipper on my chest, pushed the hoodie off my head to get that air out and kicked down, at which time the suit started compressing and I was kicking in a flood of air, bubbling around my ankles. Finally I was neutrally buoyant!

A gentle surge had us coasting through the Kelp Forest off Miller’s Point, False Bay. At 17 °C with my hoodie still pushed back on my head and diving without gloves or booties I was surprised at how warm the water felt. I can’t get used to the restrictive full gear! The adequate layer of fat under my skin has been a life saver in this regard. We were a party of five and comfortably snaked through the forest. I was just behind my buddy, the dive lead, and keeping a lookout for a Pajama shark, as I saw one on the snorkel for science experience I had the previous day with CAPE RADD. The blades of the kelp was swaying in the surge and that alone I could use 150 BAR on, but the colourful urchins had me mesmerised as I just learnt that they wear hats! Yes, they don hats in the form of shells or broken scraps of kelp blades or other material to protect them from the sun. We were at 11 meters. It’s like looking at a fashion parade, I tell you!  

I was stopped in my “tracks”. Not sure what to do, seeing my buddy vanishing in the 10 meter viz between the stipes of the kelp, then realising the rest of the party was behind me, I let my buddy go. I started finding markers for the spot, allowing a return, to show him what I found. I then followed his path through the kelp to call him back. On our return, we met the rest of the party and as I tried to recognise my markers someone pointed, they saw it too! A Gasflame Nudibranch flashing blue-violet cerata, as these fragile hedgehog like spines swayed in the surge. He was on a rock wall between kelp and other magical organisms. A treasure of a find indeed!

We had two cameras on the dive and the dive was enhanced by me modelling for a couple of video shoots! Could a dive get better than this? Not owning a Gopro yet, every underwater shot, proving that I was diving, means the world to me. I’m still getting used to my new identity. I’m a diver now! The footage helps me to realise I’m not dreaming.

On this dive we did a shore exit on a slipway, which entailed a surface swim through the kelp to get to the slipway. I love feeling the slippery kelp blades under my hands, I always have. It is a tactile stimulation that takes me back to being six years old in an instant. As I said, I grew up on the Atlantic and kelp was part of my treasure hunts on the beach, exploring what the sea washed up overnight. Getting to the slipway introduces my second cold water challenge – getting back onto my feet! During the cold water dives my strength in my lower limbs are decreased and my already challenged mobility is tested more. I crawled out to where there would be no danger of slipping and then had help.  But hey! I’m not complaining when I have two handsome divers at my side, helping me back to land. And after all, mermaids aren’t supposed to be very mobile on land!

One of the highlights of all my dives is the post dive debrief. This day it was sitting in a parking lot waiting for our transfer back to the dive centre – I enjoy the camaraderie, the laughs, gaining knowledge and sharing the adventure. Each diver stripped to just being themselves, feeling the solidarity. And me – usually less mobile, but more talkative (if that’s even possible), tired and perhaps feeling a bit cold and hungry, but thriving on the fellowship and living my truth – loving every moment of it!

By Lynette Gerber-Lochenkov