Private Guided Nudibranch Hunting in Cape Town

The members of Dive Inn Center are passionate Nudibranch hunters. Cape Town’s cold waters may not have the many colourful fish found on coral reefs. Instead, you can find incredibly colourful reefs, which are perfect for a macro fanatic.

So, what is a nudibranch? Short and sweet, it’s a slug – a sea slug. But not the common dull garden-variety slug – no, nudibranchs are usually rather colourful and attractive, showing incredible variety. Nudibranch itself means “naked gill”, because the gills are on the outside of the body. And while we all commonly refer to all sea slugs as nudibranchs, technically they are only one type of sea slug – there are many others!

In Cape Town there are around 75 known species, according to the naturalist and nudibranch diving fundis. For most of them we have nice common names, but we also have the scientific names for those who like to tick off species lists. Guido Zsilavecz has written a book “Nudibranchs of the Cape Peninsula of False Bay”. It shows most of the known Nudibranch species. While in Georgina Jones’ book “A Field Guide to the Marine Animals of the Cape Peninsula” the more common ones are shown. This in-between all the other animals found in the 8-18 degree waters.

Dive Inn Cape Town, specialises in looking for nudibranchs – they like them, they are good at finding them, making them the perfect guides for the keen nudibranch hunter and photographer. Dives can be done from shore (there are many easy-entry sites – quite unusual actually). Boats are used for deeper dives or further offshore, with depths ranging from 5 to 30 metres of depth. Of course, nudibranch diving Cape Town is not the only things you will see... You will encounter many other macro life on each dive, apart from simply enjoying the colour of the reefs and moody kelp beds alike.