Dennis Bakhuis

Dive site · sea · The Cape Peninsula

🇿🇦 Vulcan Rock

Hout Bay, Cape Town, South Africa

A pinnacle off Duiker Island in Hout Bay, rising out of cold Atlantic water into a canopy of sea bamboo.

Dives here
1
Deepest
20 m
Water
salt
First · last
2006

Revision 1 · changed 10 Oct 2026

History
  1. r1 10 Oct 2026 Imported from the personal log · Dennis Bakhuis

Site data © divelog-sites contributors (ODbL), descriptions and maps CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

1 map

Split-fan kelp on the tops to 15 m↓14 m↓12 m↓29 mVulcan Rock, breaks the surface↓0 mCavern under the rock, 4 openings↓15 mBalloon cave overhang, air pockets↓13 mNorth ridge pinnacle↓3 mWest Ridge pinnacle, swim-through 23 m↓14 mRocksucker Ridge↓12 mSwim-through cracks↓15 mSand patch↓29 mBoat drop (no mooring, live boat)Low reef, deeper to the west↓24 mN20 m
  • Entry / exit
  • Point of interest
  • Pinnacle / rock
  • Sand
  • Other area
  • Depth
Site map · 9 objects · max 29 m

Vulcan Rock is the exposed top of a granite tor in a cluster of pinnacles trending north-west to south-east, off the Karbonkelberg coast beyond the mouth of Hout Bay; there is no shore within the drawing. The rock position is the OpenStreetMap seamark (node 3662683982); the North Ridge, West Ridge and Rocksucker Ridge positions, the cavern at 15-20 m under the rock, the balloon-cave overhang, the 28-30 m sand patch to the south-west, the low reef at 24 m to the west, the kelp line and the advice not to anchor come from the Wikivoyage 'Diving the Cape Peninsula and False Bay/Vulcan Rock' guide. The outlines of the ridges, the kelp and the sand patch and the boat drop are drawn around those points and are approximate.

Map © divelog-sites contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0 · 53edcaf

Vulcan Rock is a granite pinnacle off Duiker Island at the mouth of Hout Bay, rising from about 34 m to within a few metres of the surface. Because the top is shallow it grows a full canopy of Ecklonia maxima — sea bamboo — and the dive is largely spent moving through a kelp forest with the rock walls dropping away underneath it.

The water is Benguela-cold, low teens, and rich with it: the rock is covered in soft corals, anemones and nudibranchs, with red roman and hottentot in the kelp.

Duiker Island itself holds a large colony of Cape fur seals, and the seals come out to the pinnacle.

One dive, 5 March 2006, to 20 m. Dive 15 in the log, and the first dive outside Europe.

Dived here with

Dylan

Nearby sites

1 dive at Vulcan Rock

  1. 5 Mar 2006 with Dylan boat date5 Mar 2006 depth20 m time42 min water10 °C

Sources

  • First-hand observation (Dennis Bakhuis)