Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Saturday 13 September 2014

Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 13 September 2014

Time

8:35am - 9:47am

Details

It was relatively calm at The Leap although the swell looked bigger than the forecasted 0.8 metre southerly. There was too much water washing over the low platform so I would have to slide down the wall next to the platform. As I hit the water I tore my right hamstring. I had strained it earlier in the week but this hurt a lot more and it was a tear for sure, albeit a minor one. It wasn't going to stop me from diving and finning didn't make it hurt any more than it was already.

I descended and headed almost due east as I wanted to check out the wall. It was a long swim with a head current and took me around 8 minutes to reach the wall. I dropped down the wall and headed north west towards The Steps. Visibility was over 10 metres and the wall looked fantastic.

The current was quite strong and I didn't need to swim much to keep going but I did need to swim against the current to stay in on place. I checked out the sponges on the rocks at the base of the wall for seahorses but found none. At the end of the wall I continued looking at the sponge covered rocks for seahorses and did this all the way to Seahorse Rock with no luck.

I found "Rosie", the pot-bellied seahorse, on her usual rock behind seahorse rock and then continued on. At the next seahorse location I found "Pierre" and "Southern Cross". There were two reaper cuttlefish on the rock near "Southern Cross".

I continued on and found a total of 5 weedy seadragons, including 2 males with eggs as well as the one with the stumpy tail.

The rest of the dive was uneventful and I looked for "Big John", the orange form undescribed angler, on my way to the safety stop. I did my safety stop and exited at The Steps which was a little difficult with my torn hamstring but the walk up the stairs was fine.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10+ metres

Duration

71 minutes

Maximum depth

21.6 m

Average depth

15.3 m

Water temperature

16.7°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

5:00am

0.34m

High

11:20am

1.68m

Low

5:44pm

0.38m

High

11:45pm

1.40m

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.