Christo van Jaarsveld’s

Have you ever dived at the WRONG PLACE at the RIGHT TIME?

On the morning of a wet and windy 15th February 2004, I woke, not feeling too excited about a day’s diving in miserable weather conditions; there were customers booked to dive.

The evening of the 14th four customers requested a 54m dive. Our planned normal dive schedule commences at 08:00, I could only accommodate this dive at 06:00.

Arriving on the beach only three of the divers braved the weather. Viz.Astrid van Oostveen – CMAS Dive master, Fanie Roodt – CMAS Dive master and Jan Lubbe – CMAS Instructor. The fourth chose the warmth of the duvet. Sleeping a bit later listening to the rain on the roof sounded better than putting on a wet and cold wetsuit.

Although the sea was flat, it was raining with thunderstorm activity. Reaching back line after the launch & looking back I could not see land. We travelled towards the planned dive site and once we reached the area I switched on the GPS.

Whilst gearing up on the boat I indicated to the rest of the party that I was going to take my digital camera with me. Although the rated depth of the camera housing is only 40m I believed that it would not leak at 54m. (What a fortunate decision – whom would have believed us?)

Once geared and ready to go, I used the GPS to direct me to the specific dive location. That morning the GPS did not function correctly. Once close to the specified waypoint the position of the waypoint on the GPS fluctuated. I indicated to the dive group that we will have to take a chance and drop, hoping to be at the right location.

Descending to the bottom, we landed on a sandy bottom at approximately 38m. Dead sand with no ripples for natural navigation. I reached for my BC pocket to find my compass. NO COMPASS …. I indicated to Jan that I need a compass for navigation. Fortunately he had a combo 3 with a compass in the console. I took a bearing in an easterly direction hoping to find a ledge. While waiting for Astrid and Fanie to join us a Potato Bass (now named Pointer) approached us. This gave me hope. I realized that we must be close to the drop-off as the bass will not be too far from the reef. I started taking pictures of the bass and slowly swimming east. The bass turned around and started swimming in front of us also in an easterly direction.

After a short swim we reached the drop-off and descended to 54m turning north following the drop-off. I used the ledge on my left to keep direction. The visibility was poor as there was a lot of silt in the water. Within two minutes after the last photo was taken of the bass I saw the silhouette of the Coelacanth hanging under a ledge.

I started shouting and pointing to the rest of the group and swimming steadily towards the fish. Jan told me afterward that he at first thought I have seen a shark and that’s why I got very excited. The feelings and excitement I experienced at that moment cannot be put down in words. I was at Ellis Park in 1995 when South Africa won the World Cup by beating the All Blacks. Being there and experiencing the excitement of the crowd and all South Africans was fantastic and indescribable. Seeing this fish in its natural habitat is……..I cannot find words to describe it.

The four of us were overwhelmed with excitement. We spent approximately 7 minutes with the fish. Needless to say, I took as many photos as possible from all angles.

Since Monday 16th of February Peter Timm & I (discoverer of the Coelacanth at Sodwana) dived in the area, searching for the exact spot where we found the Coelacanth, now named Compass. Our first mission was to find the overhang / cave. After three days of hard swimming and spending long periods underwater on decompression stops we met up with Pointer and not long after the overhang / cave was found; unfortunately Compass was not there, but I believe that we will meet up with Compass or maybe some other Coelacanth in the near future.

This was the shallowest recording and sighting of a Coelacanth in the world. During April 2003 a Coelacanth was tagged at Sodwana and followed with electronic equipment to a depth of 72m. Finding Compass at such shallow depth opens a whole new opportunity for more divers to see this fish in its natural habitat.