Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Sunday 13 September 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 13 September 2015

Time

7:21am - 8:47am

Details

An early morning dive at my favourite dive site: The Leap. The water looked calm and clear. It was only an hour before high tide and even though it was not a very high high tide, the low shelf was out as an entry point so I slid down the wall. On the surface the visibility was at least 5 metres. I descended and took my usual path of around 60° to the sand line. I arrived near Pygmy Rock. Visibility was at least 10 metres and there was almost no surge.

I had a brief look at Pygmy Rock before moving on. I wanted to find the seahorse that the other divers told me about yesterday. I made my way towards The Steps checking out each rock with sponges. Despite my thorough search I was not able to find the seahorse.

Just past the rock where "Southern Cross" used to live I found two weedy seadragons: PT2014123001 and PT2015062401. The latter I first saw as a juvenile in June. Before reaching Seadragon Alley I spotted two more weedies, a probably female (PT2013122201) and the male (PT2014051701) with lots of eggs on its tail.

In Seadragon Alley I saw 6 more weedies: two females (PT2015052401, PT2015011102), a male(PT2014030803), and three juveniles (PT2015091101, PT2015050901, PT2015081601). I was also buzzed twice by a school of large yellow-tail kingfish. I suspect this was the same school we saw a few weeks ago.

After Seadragon Alley I continued along the sand line where I saw a green moray. While I was photographing the moray a Port Jackson shark bumped into me.

I headed up the reef after Big Rock to check out my pygmy pipehorses. I found the female straight away but I could not find the male. a lot of the algae seemed to be missing from the rock. I don't know why. Hopefully, he'll turn up next time. While I was there the kingfish came back again.

I descended to the sand line and came across another weedy seadragon (PT2014092001) before I reached the basket star.

After the basket star I swam on to the seahorses. I found "Noel" on the pink sea tulips and "Arnold" on the rock behind but could not find "Rosie". The orange red-fingered angler was still there as were the male and female pygmy pipehorses. The Miamira magnica was also in the area.

I swam on to "Di" and found another weedy seadragon (PT2015091301). This was the 12th for the dive and I believe the first time I have seen this individual. It had a strange mark on its left side.

I found "Di" on her usual rock. She wasn't hiding.

I swam to the boulders, did my safety stop and exited at The Steps. Even though it was only just 30 minutes since high tide there was very little water over the rocks making the exit easy.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10 metres

Duration

86 minutes

Maximum depth

22.1 m

Average depth

14.9 m

Water temperature

17.8°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

2:10am

0.36m

High

8:16am

1.47m

Low

2:10pm

0.43m

High

8:24pm

1.62m

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.