Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Sunday 23 November 2014

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 23 November 2014

Time

8:01am - 9:19am

Details

The Leap looked great and the north easterly swell was not going to be a problem at all. It was close to high tide and the low platform was under water so I slid down the rocks. I surface swam 10 metres along the shore to the south east before descending and swimming to the wall. The water was a lovely 20° and the visibility around 10 metres.

I descended the wall and then swam along it to the north west. At the end of the wall I started carefully checking out the low rocks for pygmy pipehorses. While looking at one of the rocks I noticed a thermocline pass me in the opposite direction to the incoming tide and the temperature instantly dropped to 18°. I didn't find any pygmy pipehorses on the low rocks and continued on to the white one we have seen for the last 8 weeks. I then moved on to the pink one I first saw 4 weeks ago.

Just after I left the pink pygmy pipehorse I found a pregnant male weedy seadragon. This was the same male we saw with eggs on 1 November and 7th time I had seen it since March. I saw a second weedy seadragon in the same area and this was the 11th time I had seen this individual since March.

Shortly after the weedy seadragons I saw "Nat", the small grey red-fingered angler, which was in exactly the same spot it had been for the last 3 weeks. I also measured it with my probe to find that it is closer to 4 cm in length.

I had to get a bit of a move on as I was diving with Nitrox at only 24% O₂ and I didn't have a lot of non-decompression time. I searched the rock behind Seahorse Rock for "Rosie", the pot-bellied seahorse, and initially could not find her. Eventually, I found her hanging on low down to the side of the rock.

Some more quick swimming and on the way to the other seahorses I spotted two common Sydney octopus mating. They pretty much sit at arm's distance and the male inserts his modified arm into the female.

I found "Southern Cross" and "Pierre" on their rock along with a reaper cuttlefish and boxfish. I believe both are resident on that rock as we see them on most dives.

I was running very low on non-decompression time and had to ascend slightly to stay out of deco. I swam over Seadragon Alley 3-4 metres from the bottom and did not see any seadragons - which is not all that surprising. I then followed the ramp up to the top of the reef and swam through the top reef to boulders and did my safety stop along the way to the Plesiastrea colonies. After my safety stop I exited at The Steps.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10+ metres

Duration

77 minutes

Maximum depth

22.5 m

Average depth

16.7 m

Water temperature

17.2°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

2:57am

0.38m

High

9:26am

1.82m

Low

4:00pm

0.26m

High

9:57pm

1.41m

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.