Dive at The Steps, Kurnell, NSW on Saturday 10 October 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 10 October 2015

Time

11:09am - 12:36pm

Details

We jumped in at The Steps, descended to the sand line, turned right and headed towards The Leap. We swam past the kelp hoping to see some weedy seadragons but there were none to be seen. When we got to the rock where I first saw "Big John", the red-fingered angler, we headed up off the sand line to the rock where "Di" and "Joseph", pot-bellied seahorses, have been. I scoured the rock but I could not find either seahorse. Most odd. Chang-Le found a tiny nudibranch to photograph with his new SMC. Xavier and I couldn't drag him away so we slowly moved back to the sand line and headed to Diversity Rock hoping he'd catch up.

At Diversity Rock I could not see the red-fingered angler. It was definitely not in its usual spot. The two pygmy pipehorses (IL2015091101 and 2015091201) were still in the Carijoa and "Noel", the pot-belied seahorse, was in the pink sea tulips as usual. "Rosie" was down low on the next rock but I could not find "Arnold". Xavier went back to look for Chang-Le while I went on an angler hunt. At about the same time that Xavier came back with Chang-Le I managed to find the angler on the side of a rock two rocks further on from Diversity Rock. After Chang-Le had taken some photos we headed on.

We spam along the sand line past the basket star and then up from the sand line to see the other two pygmy pipehorses (IL2015072601 and IL2015092701). I found them both and we took some photographs of them. I looked around the adjacent rocks for more pygmies but had no luck.

Xavier left us at this point as he wanted to get out. Chang-Le and I swam back to the sand line, past the basket star, towards Diversity Rock. Along the way I spotted the Miamira magnifica nudibranch. It had moved quite some way towards the basket star from where it was last week near Diversity Rock.

Back at Diversity Rock, Chang-Le took some more photos and then headed for the exit. I want to check one more time for the other two seahorses, "Di" and "Joseph". On the way I found a weedy seadragon. It was a large juvenile I had not seen before. I looked carefully for "Di" and "Joseph" but found neither.

I headed for the boulders, did my safety stop and exited at The Steps.

Buddy

Chang-Le Dong, Xavier Monsaingean

Seas

Surgy

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

86 minutes

Maximum depth

14.0 m

Average depth

11.0 m

Water temperature

18.9°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

1:28am

0.43m

High

7:38am

1.43m

Low

1:37pm

0.50m

High

7:45pm

1.52m

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.