Dive at Bare Island, La Perouse, NSW on 29/3/14

Dive Details

Location

Date

29 March, 2014

Time

7:40am - 8:53am

Details

After all the rain during the week and the report of an oil spill in Botany Bay I was not expecting much from Bare Island. When I arrived it was still quite dark. The Sun was up but was still low in the sky and the clouds in the east were quite dark and thick. There was a south-westerly wind blowing but the water surface looked OK.

By the time I go to the water it had lightened up a but but it was still going to be a virtual night dive. I entered on the northern side of the island just inside the north-west corner and headed west, then south-west and finally south until I reached the wall. I dropped down the wall and then headed west along the wall.

I kept going along the wall until it ran out and I reached the sponge covered tiers. I kept at around 16 metres until I found the area where the seahorses normally are. I found the yellow female almost immediately and shortly after the small light brown female. I then looked and looked and looked and could not find any of the others. I swam back and forth along the area but I didn't seem to have my eye in. While looking at some sea tulips at the edge of the area from a different angle I noticed one of the males. This male is often in a similar position. I felt somewhat better that I'd at least found 3 of them and was about to give up when I spotted the other three in a row on one sponge - there was the small male with the head spines, the red, black and white female and the dark male with the red eyes. I had always known there were six individual seahorses in the area but this was the first time I'd found all 6 on the one dive.

Happy that I'd found the seahorses, I headed east and into shallower water in search of the shallow wall. While looking for the wall I found a smallish long-snout boarfish swimming around. It didn't seem to be all that scared of me and I was able to get reasonably close, much closer than I've got to a boarfish before.

I resumed my search for the shallow wall and found it and the sponges where I'd last seen the painted angler. I searched the whole area looking for the angler but could not find it. It had been 3 weeks since I'd dived there and I guess it could have moved a lot in that time.

I was running low on air so I cut over the top of the wall and headed towards the north of the island. After a quick look at the surface to check I was heading in the right direction, I came in over the outboard motor and exited just to the west of the ramp. Considering the rain, it was a very good dive and my timing was good because the wind and swell were picking up as I got out.

Seas

Choppy

Visibility

3-8 metres

Duration

73 minutes

Maximum depth

17.8 m

Average depth

12.0 m

Water temperature

20.3°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

1:40am

0.35m

High

7:57am

1.78m

Low

2:19pm

0.23m

High

8:29pm

1.68m

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.