- Open Water course
- ZAR 6,600
- Water temperature
- 8–13°C
Updated July 2026
Good to know
Good to Know
- This is cold-water, kelp-forest diving, not tropical reef diving — expect low-double-digit °C water temperatures year-round and strongly consider a drysuit course if you plan to dive regularly here.
- The two coastlines have near-opposite seasonal 'best' windows: Atlantic Seaboard sites are mainly a summer (Dec–Mar) proposition, while False Bay is generally considered the better winter option — check which side an operator is running before booking.
- No liveaboards operate here — all diving is via short day-boat trips from Hout Bay, Simon's Town, Miller's Point or Kalk Bay, or via shore entries, so there's no need (or option) to book multi-day boat charters.
- Some Atlantic-side shore sites (e.g. Oudekraal) sit inside a Marine Protected Area and legally require a scuba permit, obtainable from a South African post office, before diving.
- Visibility is highly wind- and swell-dependent on both coasts, so it's worth keeping dive plans flexible and booking with operators who can pivot sides at short notice.
- Open Water course prices vary a fair amount by operator and location — expect roughly R6,175-R10,370 depending on whether you book with an independent Simon's Town-area shop or a city-center/Waterfront-affiliated school.
- Several operators explicitly offer both scuba and PADI Freediver courses, so if you're curious about freediving you don't necessarily need to find a separate specialist school — though at least one dedicated freediving-only outfit also exists in the city.
- Most hands-on diving happens around Simon's Town/False Bay rather than the CBD, so factor in a roughly 40-minute drive if you book with a Simon's Town-based operator, even though their shopfront pricing and course structure is otherwise comparable to Sea Point/Waterfront options.
- Courses are weather- and swell-dependent (Cape Town's exposed coastline gets seasonal south-westerly swell), so build a few flexible days into your schedule rather than booking a tight itinerary around a single Open Water course.
Overview
- Access Type
- Overwhelmingly shore- and day-boat-dependent — Cape Town diving is NOT liveaboard-based. Boats are small RIBs launching for single or double day trips, not multi-day live-aboard vessels.
- Regional Split
- Cape Point marks a genuine biological boundary: the Atlantic Seaboard (west of the peninsula) is cool-to-cold-temperate water, while False Bay (east of the peninsula) is warmer-temperate, and marine life differs noticeably between the two sides.
- Seasonality General
- Atlantic side diving is largely a summer (roughly Dec–Mar) proposition, while False Bay is commonly considered better in winter months; one Cape Town dive operator notes that as winter approaches, Atlantic-side diving becomes largely unavailable.
Boat Launch Points
- Hout Bay harbour (Atlantic Seaboard sites)
- Simon's Town
- Miller's Point
- Kalk Bay (False Bay sites)
False Bay Sites
Smitswinkel Bay Wrecks (Five Scuttled Naval Vessels)
- Type
- wreck (artificial reef)
- Access
- Boat dive, best reached by an experienced skipper from Kalk Bay or Miller's Point (about 4 km)
- Location
- Smitswinkel Bay
- Best Season
- Winter (False Bay's better season)
- Marine Life And Notes
- The South African Navy scuttled five wrecks in the early 1970s to form an artificial reef here, and it's considered one of South Africa's most challenging wreck dives.
SAS Pietermaritzburg ("PMB")
- Type
- wreck
- Access
- Boat dive
- Location
- False Bay
- Best Season
- Winter
- Marine Life And Notes
- A favourite wreck dive among Cape Town divers; originally an Algerine-class ocean minesweeper called HMS Pelorus, built in Scotland and launched on 19 June 1943.
Clan Stuart (Wreck)
- Type
- wreck
- Depth
- Average 6 m, maximum around 8 m
- Access
- Shore dive — easy access with adequate parking, well protected from south-westerly swell
- Location
- Mackerel Bay, about 4 km from the Fish Hoek traffic circle on Simon's Town Road, roughly 100 m from the beach
- Best Season
- Year-round shore dive, though conditions/visibility are seasonal
- Marine Life And Notes
- An easy, shallow wreck suitable for all levels and used for training and night dives; the engine block is visible above the water from shore, and the wreck itself is covered in growth with plenty of small fish. Great white sharks have occasionally been sighted here.
A-Frame
- Type
- reef / boulder
- Access
- Shore dive with an easy, flat rocky-plateau entry
- Location
- Near Simon's Town / Long Beach area, False Bay
- Best Season
- Winter
- Marine Life And Notes
- A popular shore dive with interesting swim-throughs; divers descend onto a shallow sandy area before touring through kelp forest and past large boulders, with varied marine life.
Boulder Reef (Miller's Point / Castle Rocks Area)
- Type
- reef
- Depth
- Roughly 8–30 m
- Access
- Boat dive
- Location
- False Bay, near Miller's Point / Castle Rocks
- Best Season
- Winter
- Marine Life And Notes
- Large boulder-strewn reef known as a good place to spot small sharks such as shy sharks and pyjama sharks; the deeper section is covered in deep-orange sea fans and orange nudibranchs.
Rocky Bank / Bellows Rock (Mouth of False Bay)
- Type
- offshore reef
- Access
- Boat dive, advanced — current-affected
- Location
- Mouth of False Bay
- Best Season
- Winter, conditions-dependent
- Marine Life And Notes
- These offshore sites regularly experience light-to-medium Agulhas-current eddies, occasionally strong enough at Bellows Rock's shallows to inconvenience divers.
Atlantic Seaboard Sites
Maori (Wreck)
- Type
- wreck
- Depth
- 13 m to a maximum of about 21 m
- Access
- Boat dive only — not easily accessible from shore as there are no roads into the area
- Location
- Close inshore between Duiker Point and Oude Schip, roughly 7.5 km from Hout Bay Harbour
- Best Season
- Summer (boat dives on this side run mainly Dec–Mar)
- Marine Life And Notes
- A 5,317-ton cargo ship that sank in 1909 carrying explosives, pipes and crockery from London to New Zealand; Jacques Cousteau reportedly called it the best-preserved wreck of its vintage he had dived. Points of interest include the steam engines and cargo railway lines.
Oudekraal
- Type
- reef / kelp forest
- Access
- Shore dive — parking is usually not a big problem, but divers must navigate rocks and floating kelp to reach the water, and it's a fairly long surface swim to the site
- Location
- At the base of the Twelve Apostles, Atlantic Seaboard
- Best Season
- Summer
- Marine Life And Notes
- Sits within a Marine Protected Area, so a scuba diving permit (obtainable from a post office) is required. Hottentot fish are the most common species seen in the kelp forest on this side of Cape Point.
Western Seaboard of the Cape Peninsula, Launched From Hout Bay Harbour
- Name
- Western Seaboard wrecks, reefs, blinders and pinnacles (general area, boat dives from Hout Bay)
- Type
- wreck / reef / pinnacle
- Access
- Boat dive
- Best Season
- Summer
- Marine Life And Notes
- Described by local operators as offering spectacular wrecks alongside reefs, blinders and pinnacles; the coastal drive out to Hout Bay is considered one of the most scenic in Cape Town.
SS Thomas T. Tucker (Wreck) / Vulcan Rock Area
- Type
- wreck / reef
- Access
- Predominantly boat-accessible; remote stretch of coast
- Location
- Near Cape Point (Olifantsbos area), marked in local dive-site records by an exposed rock at the highest point of the reef with a swim-through cavern beneath it
- Best Season
- Summer
- Marine Life And Notes
- Part of a cluster of charted rock/reef features (Vulcan Rock, Stonehenge markers) on the Atlantic side used by local dive-boat skippers as navigation points.
Other Notable Named Wrecks Regionally Dived
Astor
- Type
- wreck
- Access
- Boat dive
- Depth Range
- roughly 12–40 m across the commonly-dived wreck set
Katzu Maru
- Type
- wreck
- Access
- Boat dive
- Depth Range
- roughly 12–40 m across the commonly-dived wreck set
Conditions Notes
- Biodiversity
- False Bay is recognised as a biodiversity hotspot due to the number of endemic species found in its waters, and Cape Town diving overall ranges from kelp forests to cold-water coral gardens and deep reefs.
- Wrecks Origin
- Wrecks on the Atlantic side are almost all the result of storms or navigational accidents, whereas most False Bay wrecks were deliberately scuttled by the SA Navy as artificial reefs.
- Scale Of Region
- The Cape Peninsula and False Bay diving region includes well over 300 individually named and charted dive sites, though only a subset are commonly dived by recreational operators.
- Water Temperature And Exposure
- A dry suit is generally recommended on the Atlantic seaboard, or for any dive deeper than about 20 m in water colder than 13°C; with an appropriate undergarment it's possible to dive comfortably for an hour at 8°C, whereas most divers in 7 mm wetsuits get cold after about 30 minutes.
Courses And Operators
- Operator Density
- At least 10 distinctly named, active PADI-affiliated dive centers/schools were identified serving Cape Town, clustered mainly in three areas: Sea Point / V&A Waterfront (Two Oceans Aquarium Dive School, Into the Blue / Dive School Cape Town, OceanX), Simon's Town / False Bay (Pisces Divers, Alpha Dive Centre, Dive Team, Orca Diving Academy, UCT Underwater Club, Kelp Divers), and Gordon's Bay further along the coast (Just Africa Scuba, and other PADI centers offering Advanced Open Water). This is a genuinely dense operator scene for a single metro area, not just one or two shops.
- Certifying Bodies
- PADI is overwhelmingly the dominant certifying agency among Cape Town dive operators found in research; no evidence was found of SSI, CMAS or other agencies having comparable presence here, so this data covers PADI course availability specifically.
- Discover Scuba Diving Cost
- ZAR 870
- Course Duration And Structure
- Open Water courses typically run 3-4 days (a mix of e-learning theory, confined-water/pool sessions, and 4 open-water dives), commonly done at Cape Peninsula shore sites such as Long Beach (Simon's Town) and kelp-forest sites, and this schedule was consistent across several independent operators.
- Typical Open Water Course Cost
- ZAR 6,600
- Levels Note
- Multiple Cape Town centers run full PADI progression paths. Alpha Dive Centre's listed course menu runs from Discover Scuba through to Divemaster and PADI Instructor Development, and Pisces Divers explicitly runs a full Career Development Programme taking students from Open Water up to instructor-level qualifications.
- Location Note
- Cape Town's most active dive shop cluster is around Simon's Town/False Bay (roughly 40 minutes' drive from the city center) rather than the CBD itself, because that's where the sheltered shore dive sites and kelp forests are; V&A Waterfront and Sea Point also have city-center-adjacent dive schools.
Freediving Crossover
- Details
- Freediving crossover is real, not assumed: Two Oceans Aquarium Dive School runs a PADI Freediver course alongside its scuba courses, Pisces Divers advertises itself as offering 'the full range of PADI dive and freediver training,' and OceanX at the V&A Waterfront markets itself as a combined 'PADI 5 Star Scuba Diving Cape Town and PADI Freediving Centre.' There is also at least one dedicated freediving-only school (Apnea Addicts) operating separately from the scuba shops, focused on freediving, spearfishing and snorkeling rather than scuba.
- Freediver Course Cost
- ZAR 5,150
- Genuine Crossover Confirmed
- Yes
Open Water Cost Range
- Low
- ZAR 6,175
- High
- ZAR 10,370
Levels Commonly Offered
- PADI Discover Scuba Diving (try-dive, non-certification)
- PADI Open Water Diver (and Junior Open Water for ages 10-14)
- PADI Advanced Open Water Diver
- PADI Rescue Diver
- PADI Divemaster
- PADI Instructor-level courses (Instructor Development Course / Career Development Programmes) at some centers
AI-generated estimateData refreshed July 2026
This section has no cited sources.
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Data last updated July 2026 · Verify anything important.