Smits Reef

城市概覽

This reef has a wide variety of colourful invertebrates and spectacular topography in good visibility. There are several parts of the reef which are far enough apart to be dived as separate sites. The Maze is the most popular – a small area with some interleading swimthroughs among the large boulders to the south-east of the reef.

Position S34°16.486’ E018°28.929’ 1 Smits Reef (Top of the reef) The reef is north and offshore slightly from Batsata Rock, and extends into the mouth of Smitswinkel Bay. This site is in the Table Mountain National Park Marine Protected Area (2004). A permit is required. The reef shown on the map is all just outside the Paulsberg Restricted Zone.

Name This area has many names. "Smits Reef" is obvious and logical , as it is in Smitswinkel Bay, and the popular contraction for the wrecks of the area is "Smits wrecks", so Smits Reef makes sense, and is used to refer to the whole area and more specifically to the top of the main reef, on the east side of the gap. "Batsata Maze" refers to the nearby Batsata Rock, but most of the reef is not really much of a maze, so it is recommended that this name is reserved for the small section at the south east corner, centred on S34°16.517' E018°29.017', which is more like a maze than the rest, with deep gullies and gaps between huge boulders, and several caves and swimthroughs. "Birthday Reef" is probably a purely arbitrary reference to an unknown person's birthday, and the relevance is unclear. The name is falling out of general usage. "Horseshoe Reef" refers to the shape of the north eastern part of the reef, which is a massive area of granite with a deep indentation, not entirely unlike a horseshoe in shape, so it is now used when referring to the northeastern sector. The whole area is known to fishermen as "Seekatbank", presumably because of the abundance of octopus (seekat in Afrikaans) caught here. The number seen on dives is not very large, but there are plenty of places for them to hide, so

如何抵達

Only accessible by boat. The site is approximately 5.8 km from Miller's Point slipway and 13.1km from Simon's Town jetty.

必看景點

Marine life

Like many other sites on the False Bay side of the Cape Peninsula, the shallowest areas have large numbers of the large solitary sea squirt known locally as "red bait", The steeper walls tend to be covered in common feather stars, with a scattering of Elegant feather stars and a variety of encrusting and more bulky sponges, false corals, gorgonians. The deeper reef tops have red-chested and Mauve sea cucumbers, gorgonians, strawberry anemones and striped anemones. There are also places where there is a surprisingly dense cover of brittle stars, and cauliflower soft corals can be found scattered around the less exposed areas. The west reef appears to be notable for the numbers of catsharks and Orange wall sponges seen there. Flatter areas of the deeper rocks tend to have large numbers of sea urchins and sea cucumbers. Hottentot seabream and Galjoen can be seen on the pinnacle. Smits Reef

Kreef Reef

Features The Maze, to the south of the main reef, with the cave/swimthrough complex at 20 m on the east side at S34°16.516' E18°29.025'. The long sandy gully, between the main outcrop and the lesser outcrop to the west. The large overhang on the south west side of the main reef at S34°16.499' E18°28.909' The pinnacle at the south end of the west reef at S34°16.495' E18°28.863' The outlier pinnacles and wall at the east end of the north-east arm

Photography Good site for invertebrate photography. (photographic equipment suggestions)

體驗活動

Dive at one of the marks and explore the vicinity. The reef complex is too big to see it all on one dive. 1 Smits Reef: S34°16.486’ E018°28.929’. (Top of the reef) The south west corner of the main reef also has some pretty rugged profile, and the big overhang on the 15 m contour is worth a visit. 2 Batsata Maze: S34°16.517' E018°29.017'. (About the middle of the Maze area.) Batsata Maze is a small section of the reef towards the southeast where a jumble of large boulders lie on top of the lower outcrops and form a group of swim-throughs, overhangs, gaps and caves. There is a relatively complex group of linked swim-throughs and holes under the rocks at a depth of roughly 20 m to the east side of the Maze. The main entrance at S34°16'30.9", E018°29'01.5" faces 120° magnetic (roughly southeast) and is at the northwest end of a fairly deep gap between boulders. The swim-through forks to both sides, but the south fork appears to be bigger. If you follow the 18 m depth contour north from this swim-through, you should find a few others, considerably smaller, in the general vicinity of the Maze. A dive at the Maze will appeal to divers who like overhangs, holes and swim-throughs. Dive on the reef near the south end, Swim south to 20 m depth, and follow the 20 m contour to the cave on the east side of the reef. There are several other holes and swim-throughs in this area and you can easily spend an hour looking for them. 3 Maze Cave: S34°16.517' E018°29.026'. (Main entrance to the cave swim-through) 4 Western Pinnacle: S34°16.495' E018°28.863'. The West Reef is across a sandy bottomed gap from the west side of the main reef. There is a sheer sided pinnacle near the southern end of this section, and a more gradual slope to the sand to the north. The sand bottom in this area is mostly between 17 and 18 m deep. Most of this section is low profile, below the 15 m contour, and the rest is pretty steep, peaking to the south with at least two pinnacles just above 6 m depth on top.