Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on 8/3/14

Dive Details

Location

Date

08 March, 2014

Time

1:50pm - 3:07pm

Details

The swell had picked up slightly from the morning but it still looked great from the top of the cliff and looked just as good on the rock shelf.

We jumped in, descended and headed to the sand line. On the way, Sheree spotted a rock flathead very well camouflaged in the sand. We headed out at around 75° and ended up on the wall. We need to go at 60° to end up in the amphitheatre. The wall is always fun and so we followed it along towards The Steps. We spotted a basket star on the way.

We got to the end of the wall and continued through the amphitheatre and along the sponge covered boulders. We saw a juvenile giant cuttlefish and a weedy seadragon. I recognised the rock on which I had previously seen "Alex", the painted angler. I called Sheree over and explained that this was the rock and she immediately saw "Alex" sitting on the side of the rock.

We continued on and saw another weedy seadragon before we got to Seahorse Rock. Behind Seahorse Rock we found the pot-bellied seahorses, "Rosie" and "Bob". We searched around the area looking for other seahorses and found "Lucy" a little further along. Even though we don't see her on every dive, she appears to be staying in the same general area.

On one of the low sponge covered rocks out on the sand we found two reaper cuttlefish and one was displaying to the other. It was trying very hard to impress the other.

We found the other three pot-bellied seahorses, "Southern Cross", "Richie" and "Pierre" on their usual rock but I could not find the tiny reaper cuttlefish we often see there.

We continued on and saw another 3 weedy seadragons for a total of 5 for the dive. We were running low on air so started to swim a little more quickly. We had a quick look for the Miamira magnifica nudibranch and eventually found it under Sheree's elbow.

After a quick swim to the boulders, we did our safety stop near the Plesiastrea colonies and exited at The Steps.

Another fantastic dive at The Leap. This is one of the best dive sites in Sydney, if not the best.

Buddy

Sheree Papuni

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10-15 metres

Duration

76 minutes

Maximum depth

21.7 m

Average depth

15.9 m

Water temperature

17.8°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

2:18am

1.50m

Low

9:00am

0.62m

High

2:51pm

1.17m

Low

8:39pm

0.68m

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.