Oswaldo's Drop-off

Check in with the dive shop when you arrive, and ask if it is ok for you to use their dock. You may have to show your certification card and sign a waiver. You can't miss the entrance. Drive to the far left end of the parking lot. It's easy to fit both sites in one dive.

Oswaldo's Drop Off is only accessible to shore divers staying at Breezes hotel. However, the best part of the reef is accessible from the public beach right next door - Pierbaai, Marie Pampoen. The prevailing current makes this shore entry a better option for diving Pierbaai Reef (of which Oswaldo's is a small part) and the Car Pile. Pierbaai Reef is gorgeous, filled with marine life, very easy shore entry and about a 1 minute swim out. There's also an on-site dive shop for directions and tips on what to look out for, and a bar/restaurant. It's also a great spot for a night dive. Use the same beach entry for diving the Car Pile - a very unusual deep wreck dive that's well worth exploring. Suzy(at)the-dive-bus(dotcom)

Very easy and enjoyable dive. Watch the current though. Excellent marine life.

Excellent dive - This was probably the best reef dive we did all week. The reef was healthy, lots of marine life, and just a very relaxing dive. Our entry was a giant stride off the boat dock at Breezes and just followed the line to the reef. Even though we only dove this reef once, we watched many people come and go while relaxing on the beach. Earlier in the week the wind and current made the return trip back to the dock a little difficult and some had to be towed in by boat. Just watch the current and wind and it will be a wonderful dive.

I thought this was a really nice, relaxing dive for a newbie like me. This is where I did my first few dives since being certified back in Aug. 2006. We stayed at Breezes, and the Ocean Encounters staff was GREAT! There was plenty to see, even at 20-30 feet. I averaged about 40. Lots of life, fish, coral - a great diversity of things to view. It was just a great experience! Check out my pix at: http://thesolons.com/blog/?page_id=5

To the WEST of Breezes resort is a protected inlet with a swimming beach and two restaurants. It's a very easy entry. Just walk in at the beach. Current goes East to West, so dive around the breakwater and into the current. This is a really fun dive, and fairly unspoiled. Good stuff including lots of octopus, flying grunards, squid.

I work at the Breezes Dive Shop so dive Oswaldo's almost everyday. Breezes entry is off limits to non-guests but you can also access through Kontiki Beach next door. No point going deep on the reef - best life is 20-40 ft. Current usually runs East to West meaning you can only reach Car Pile (to the West of Breezes) when current is low. Better option is to enter from Marie Pampoen, public beach next door. Can go as deep as you care to at Car Pile. Usually see turtles, cuda, and thousands of balling silversides - v. cool. Reef in not bad condition considering number of divers.

Coral is building up on the man-made breakwater making it an excellent snorkeling site. We were staying at the Superclubs Breezes, formerly the Princess Resort, and could just walk in at their beach. Snorkeling inside the break-water is great with very calm conditions, all types of parrotfish, tangs, squirrelfish, puffers, flounders, even a flying gurnard. Reef silversides and snooks abound all along close to the shore to the delight of beginner snorkelers and non-snorkelers. You can swim through passes in the breakwater and snorkel the outside edge where there are wonderful elkhorn, seagrass, brain, and pipe coral. I saw lots of trumpetfish, French angels, cuttlefish, and even an octopus. The surf and current can be strong on the outside. We were there in January and saw a school of dolphins pass near the dive shop.

Did daily dives from this location. Going left, one wanders around is a less dense environment, but there are seahorses, which I could not find. Going right, there is more coral life, eventually reaching the car-pile section, which in my few treks, did not go down to check out. I did see the top of it, which consisted of beams, some truck chassis and other heaps of junk. From what I heard, it gets dense as you go deeper. On both dives, marine life gets spars as you approach 35ft of depth due to man made jetty. Saw many marine life, including boxfish, blowfish, tank fish, angelfish, 5ft barracuda, giant turtle and many others.

Did daily dives from this location. Going left, one wanders around is a less dense environment, but there are seahorses, which I could not find. Going right, there is more coral life, eventually reaching the car-pile section, which in my few treks, did not go down to check out. I did see the top of it, which consisted of beams, some truck chassis and other heaps of junk. From what I heard, it gets dense as you go deeper. On both dives, marine life gets spars as you approach 35ft of depth due to man made jetty. Saw many marine life, including boxfish, blowfish, tank fish, angelfish, 5ft barracuda, giant turtle and many others.

A+ dive. Recommend it for everyone!

My wife and I dove 12 out of 14 days. We did all shore dives including 2 night dives and enjoyed each one. (For those who think I'm unqualified, I'm a Dive Master with well over 200 dives and 17 yrs exp) We've dove in a lot of different locations in the world and this was very nice right from the dock. Oswaldo's drop off is a challenge. You can start out at the white buoy around 18 ft, and then we stopped at 109 ft. It just kept going, so be careful! If you swim to the black buoy and then keep going till you get to the 2nd bird cage (west side toward the island), drop to 60 ft here and you'll find a truck upside down. Continue down to 100 ft and you'll hit bottom at the "Car Pile". We made this dive 5 times. It's a lot more than just a car pile, it's a barge that was sunk with a crane, a bunch of cars and trucks, some telephone poles, a large scoop shovel, 2 boats (looked like life boats about 20 ft each), large I beams, concrete blocks, cables and a bunch of other stuff. Sponges grow in many different varieties, about 10 or so. We saw a large school of Barracuda, about 100 on 2 separate dives. First time we saw them, they came in a circled us only a few feet away, very cool. We also saw other large schools of small fish. i.e., there are a lot of small fish on this reef, large ones are a rare find. No sharks whatsoever, only a couple of jelly fish, three different varieties of moray eel, a number of Caribbean spiny lobsters, 1 slippery lobster, 1 straight sea horse, lots of puffer fish, cow fish, and lots of small reef fish.