This morning we launched around 7am and headed north in a choppy North-Easter sea to the Pinnacles, a dive site in around 40m of water about 5km north of out launch site at Ponta Malangane. Although not much more than a small bump relative to other pinnacles we know of, this reef consistently attracts huge shoals of game fish and along with the game fish the ever impressive Zambezi or bull shark.

This dive however out target was something different, something one only finds in deeper water – a creature from the brittle star family known as a basket star. I have seen these before in the Canyon off Sodwana, and yet according to “Two Oceans – A guide to the marine life of southern Africa”, these animals range only as far north as East London. Basket stars like to attach themselves to sea fans, and we knew off a number on the bottom near the Pinnacle – if there was ever a good place to find them it would be there.

Using his local knowledge, Barry put us smack bang on top of the Pinnacle and we dived down quickly to avoid being swept off the spot we were looking for. Immediately on entering the water we saw the familiar shapes of Zambezi sharks cruising in the deep below us, as well as the silvery promise of large shoals of pelagic game fish.

Once on the bottom around 36m, Graeme scanned around for the sea fans and headed in their direction. At 36m on normal air Open Circuit we had precious time to linger – we had to find the basket star quickly and film it before heading up to a shallower depth to avoid going into decompression. And sure enough, there they were – two beautiful basket stars, which Graeme quickly pounced on and started filming. Tightly balled, one had to watch closely to see the motion of the tentacles, and despite our presence they failed to unfold – perhaps we will have to come back for a night dive.

Within what seemed a very short space of time our bottom time ran out and we ascended to around 20m to check out the blacktip kingfish and other pelagics. They swirled past in large numbers, rising up from the depths to circle us and then drift back down, intrigued at our presence but cautious of our size. The Zambi’s also followed us up to the surface, and as one circled below a large shoal of the blacktip kingfish trailed after it, as if playing a game of tag, and one even rubbed himself up against the shark to possible get rid of parasites. After a 2 minute safety stop at 5m we hit the surface and headed back to camp.