Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on 19/1/14

Dive Details

Location

Date

19 January, 2014

Time

7:34am - 8:40am

Details

We jumped in at The Leap and descended to the sand line. Visibility at the surface was poor. It also initially looked poor at the sand line but it was really just quite dark due to the low angle of the Sun and the low visibility of the upper layers of water, We probably had 10 metres visibility at the sand line.

We headed towards The Steps along the sand line. At the rock behind Seahorse Rock we found "Rosie" and "Bob", the pot-bellied seahorses. They were quite close together. We searched around for the juvenile pot-bellied seahorse, "Lucy", but could not find her. While looking, Sheree found 2 Janolus sp. nudibranchs and then I found a third.

We continued on to the next rock with seahorses and found "Southern Cross" and "Pierre" and then eventually "Richie". There was a tiny reaper cuttlefish next to "Richie".

Further along we saw a large juvenile weedy seadragon and then we stopped at the rock where we'd seen "Dana", the red painted angler, but could not find it.

We searched the top of Big Rock for pygmy seahorses but found none. We stayed up high and swam to the rock where we'd found the Miamira magnifica nudibranch. After a bit of searching we found it. For such a colourful nudibranch, it blends in well with its surroundings under natural light. It is only when you shine white light on it that the colours stand out.

I checked out the basket star in the hope that it was open due to the early hour and low light but it was closed.

We searched for "Big John", the orange form undescribed angler but could not find it, although Sheree found a moray eel under the rock on which "Big John" was last seen.

We headed for the shallows and a safety stop before exiting at The Steps.

Buddy

Sheree Papuni

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5-10 metres

Duration

66 minutes

Maximum depth

21.1 m

Average depth

14.1 m

Water temperature

17.3°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

Note that tides at dive site may vary from above location.

Low

4:40am

0.49m

High

11:02am

1.69m

Low

5:31pm

0.37m

High

11:35pm

1.37m

Camera gear

Camera

Nikon D7000

Lens

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D

Housing

Ikelite 6801.70

Lens port

Ikelite Flat Port 5502.41

Strobe

2 x Ikelite SubStrobe DS161

Photographs

Depth information, where present, indicates the depth of the camera when the photograph was taken and can be used to approximate the depth of the subject.