Dive at Bare Island, La Perouse, NSW on 22/2/14

Dive Details

Location

Date

22 February, 2014

Time

9:24am - 10:42am

Details

A lot can change in a day. The previous day when we were at The Leap you could see how flat it was across the whole bay and around Bare Island. Today the southly swell was pounding the southern side of the island. It was not going to be as clear as it was last weekend.

We jumped in on the northern side of the island, out of the swell, and swam on the surface to the north west corner. We then descended and headed south south east to the deep wall. I was on the hunt for the seahorses. The visibility was only 2-3 metres so it was going to be a challenge to find the seahorses.

We actually hit the deep wall right at its end and so only had a short swim along the tiers until I spotted the yellow female seahorse. She was a little bit further along than she had been last weekend. I pointed her out to Kim and she took some photos and then I did. I was determined to find the others. I kept in the same area looking carefully on each sponge and other attachment point. I ended up a few metres back from where we saw the yellow female when I spotted another seahorse, then another, another, and finally a 5th. I'm not sure how many there really are there. I've seen up to 4 but when I check my photos it isn't always the same 4 so there may be as many as 6 different seahorse in that area. The visibility was such that finding more was going to be difficult.

When I looked up from finding the seahorses to point them out to Kim I realised she was no longer there. She must have continued on while I stopped to look for the others. I stayed with the seahorses for over 20 minutes hoping she'd come back, but she didn't. Surfacing wasn't an option because of the boat traffic so I continued on with the dive.

From the seahorses I headed a little bit east of north to find the shallower wall where we'd seen the angler. I'm not sure where I hit the wall because I couldn't find it. I followed the wall around to the west and then north until I hit the overhang on the north east corner. I still had 100 bar of air left so I went back along the wall in search of the angler. I eventually found it.

I went back along the wall, around the corner and up the slope to the northern side of the island. I got out near the ramp where Kim was waiting for me.

Buddy

Kim Dinh

Seas

Choppy

Visibility

2-3 metres

Duration

77 minutes

Maximum depth

17.1 m

Average depth

12.2 m

Water temperature

19.1°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

1:58am

1.50m

Low

8:23am

0.57m

High

2:17pm

1.28m

Low

8:18pm

0.55m

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.