Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on 23 August 2014

Dive Details

Location

Date

23 August 2014

Time

1:22pm - 2:38pm

Details

Just like last week, The Leap was rougher than expected based on the forecasts and was rougher still by the time we were ready to enter the water. It was less than an hour after low tide but the waves were washing over the low shelf making it unsafe for entry. I was going to have to do The Leap proper, jumping off the top of the ledge some 2 metres above the water. I was not going to do that with the camera and fortunately Greg had dropped by and so after I leaped in he passed me the camera which in itself was somewhat of a challenge. Hopefully, Andrey got some video of the exercise.

Once we were all in we descended and swam to the sand line. Despite it being rough on the surface the visibility was pretty good at the sand line at around 10 metres, although there was a lot of sand and other particulate matter.

We headed towards The Steps riding a fairly strong current. Neither "Bob" nor "Lucy", pot-bellied seahorses, were on the rock they had been on. It has now been a few weeks since I have seen them there so I have to assume they have moved on. While I was looking for them I came across three reaper cuttlefish together. It is not often I see two together so three is very unusual. Andrey took some video of a friendly blue groper and before we moved on we saw our first weedy seadragon for the dive.

I found "Rosie" alone on her usual rock behind Seahorse Rock and then I found a large dwarf lionfish on Seahorse Rock. On the way to the next seahorses I found 2 more reaper cuttlefish.

"Southern Cross" and "Pierre" were in their usual location and there was still no sign of "Richie". I believe he has also moved on.

Further along I spotted a velvetfish and we saw a few more weedy seadragons, including a male with eggs. By looking at the head shots I know this is the same male that I saw last weekend but it had much fewer eggs today. I guess some have already hatched.

We followed the sand line along as far as Big Rock and then moved up on top of the reef. We came across another weedy seadragon on the sand on top of the reef. This was the fourth I'd seen on the dive but Andrey said he'd seen six. Andrey and Alexy left me at this point and I checked out the sponge covered rocks all the way to The Steps looking for "Big John", the angler, but could not find him.

After my safety stop I exited at The Steps.

Buddy

Andrey Malashenok and Alexey Zolotarev

Seas

Rough and surgy

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

75 minutes

Maximum depth

20.9 m

Average depth

14.4 m

Water temperature

15.8°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

1:02am

0.45m

High

6:57am

1.30m

Low

12:36pm

0.53m

High

7:03pm

1.65m

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.