JanthielBaai

Feb 2015. We were staying near Jan Thiel beach but only dove there once. The beach itself is more like a resort area. Several restaurants, a spa, Scuba Do Diving dive shop, other shops. Scuba Do diving facility is large, well staffed and friendly. There is a gate where you pay 5ng to park. It is all paved. As you enter the gate, the dive shop is all the way to the right. You can drive over and park at an entrance to the beach area right at the dive shop. This is a fairly large complex as beaches go. There is another dive shop all the way to the left, but it is a loooong walk to get to if you are not staying at the resort. From ScubaDo, there's a couple of stairs and a sandy 'ramp' with a rail entrance into the water. The 'bay' is shaped like a large bowl. It gets to 40' or so in the center of the bowl, but you have to swim back up and over the lip of the bowl to 'escape' the bay and get onto the ocean side of the reef. This reef lip has some amazing scenery but can be very, very shallow - less than 3' in spots. If surf is breaking it can be tense. When we were there, crossing on the 'left' or southernmost side was easiest. There was a VERY strong current on the right-hand or northernmost side. Navigating the 'lip' of the reef, in 2-3' water in a strong current to get back into the bay made a few very tense minutes. Get a dive briefing from the shop before heading out and ask about current. The reef itself was gorgeous. The shallower areas on the lip of the reef had some amazing views in 10-20' of water. We encountered a very lazy hawksbill turtle at about 55' on the ocean side of the reef. I probably would not take a beginner out here unless the water on the ocean side of the reef is flat, and the dive shop is reporting no current, or you are going with a local guide. If you happen to encounter current on the 'lip' of this reef, do not attempt to swim into it. Go back out into deeper water, parallel the lip to a point where the water current is not running so fast, and cross there. The most important part of this site is the Gelato shop in the shopping area - Bella Italia! Real gelato, and good pizza. You could easily spend a couple of days here, diving, sunning, shopping and eating pizza and gelato.