Cape Fur Seal Diving

Join us for an adventure as we leave Houtbay harbour and head to duiker island, under the majestic sentinal mountain peak. The island is just off the rocky coast line and is home to hundreds of Cape fur seals. Here we dive with these playful and curious creatures.



The Cape fur seal (Arctocephalus pusillus) belongs to the group of animals called pinnidpeds, which means web-footed in Latin. Other familiar creatures in this group are true seals, walruses, and eared seals (sea lions and fur seals).
The difference between the groups is not always obvious. To give you a rough idea on how to tell the difference, true seals have on external ears; use their hind legs to propel themselves through the water and once on land “crawl” on their bellies. Eared seals have external ears, propel them selves with their front limbs and are capable of supporting their weight with all 4 limbs once on land. This is important because Cape fur seals fall into the latter group, the eared seals.



Cape fur seals are amazing marine predators and are capable of diving to 600m to catch their prey. They are adaptable and opportunistic feeders. Around Duiker island we have seem them feeding on pilchards, crayfish, hottentot, octopus, geelbeck and even found them regurgitating anchovies in the shallow waters of the colony. In the offshore environment, 25nm and more from land, we have seem them feeding on hake, kingklip and pilchards. They are also known to feed on small shark species and marine birds.

Duiker Island is not known as a breeding colony as, on average, less then 100 pups survive each year. During the pupping season (Nov- Dec) the island does get ravaged by big swells and strong winds which most pups can’t yet handle. The pups take to the water in January where they start honing their life skills. This is a great time to get in the water with them. It is great fun to have 40 playful pups swirling around you.

Here is what a diver had to say about the dive - Whether it was being surrounded at every turn by seals, or having staring contests with the seal pups while centimeters away or even having them swim through my legs, the whole seal diving experience was extraordinary. I highly recommend it – Duncan Finley