Within sight of Cape Town's golden eastern beaches, an unassuming stretch of water hosts some of the largest, most diverse gatherings of big marine predators on the planet. False Bay is dramatically framed to the west by the rocky Cape Peninsula, dominated by the hulking Table Mountain, but otherwise looks ordinary enough.
It is what lies beneath the surface that makes this 1,000km' inlet a veritable 'Serengeti of the Sea' Poised between the cool Benguela and warmer Agulhas currents, the bay has water temperatures of II-23°C, one of the widest annual ranges anywhere.
Powerful upwellings churn up nutrients that feed seasonal algal blooms, sustaining huge shoals of sardines, anchovies and other bait fish. These attract predatory yellowtails, bluefish, leervis and kabeljou, which in turn lure countless larger mouths.
The 'Bite Club' cast list includes a dazzling variety of sharks - great whites, bronze whalers, threshers, blues, hammerheads and several others - plus killer whales, Cape fur seals and five species of dolphin. The common dolphin megapods are often a thousand strong, whisking the ocean into a froth.
Three species of great whale - Bryde's, southern right and humpbacks - also frequent these waters regularly. Bryde's are semi-resident but mostly seen February to June, while humpbacks call in during their northbound migration in May and June, and again in October and November en route to the Southern Ocean. Southern right whales appear from August to November to mate and calve.
Piscivorous bird life is equally abundant, featuring more than 100,000 Cape cormorants, plentiful albatrosses of various species, a colony of 1,000 pairs of African penguins at Boulders Beach and squadrons of dive-bombing Cape gannets.
