Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Sunday 22 November 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 22 November 2015

Time

12:11pm - 1:42pm

Details

I realised just before the dive that I hadn't checked the battery on the camera before leaving home. When I checked it, there was a low battery warning. I was going to have careful with the camera, keep it off between shots and not take too many photos.

The Leap was calm again - perhaps a little less calm than Friday but still pretty good. I jumped in from the low platform and on the surface the visibility was only 3-5 metres. I descended and swam at a bearing of around 60° arriving to the south east of Pygmy Rock. The visibility here was around 10 metres and there were a lot of sea jellies in the water.

I headed towards The Steps. I moved pretty quickly with the current and I wanted to get to the good stuff while I still had life left in the camera battery. Just past Seahorse Rock I found the same large juvenile weedy seadragon (PT2015062401) that has been in that location for some time.

I continued on to Seadragon Alley where I saw 4 weedy seadragons: two females (PT2015011102, PT2013122201) and two large juveniles (PT2015091101, PT2015051001). Between Seadragon Alley and Big Rock I found the deformed female weedy (PT2014030901) swimming with a male (PT2014091301) who had a lot of eggs.

After Big Rock I swam up the reef to visit my two pygmy pipehorses. As I did on Friday, I found the male (IL2015092701) immediately and had to hunt for a while to find the female (IL2015072601).

I swam back down to the sand line and found a male weedy seadragon (PT2015061401) with a lot of eggs before I reached the basket star.

I continued on to Diversity Rock. I found the new seahorse, "Daniel" on the same sponge as he was on Friday. The angler was on the rock to the left. "Noel" was back on the pink sea tulips. "Rosie" and "Arnold" were on the rock behind Diversity Rock. The male pygmy pipehorse (IL2015102401) was in the Carijoa. I had a look for the other seahorse, "Greg" but could not find him. While I was at Diversity Rock, Noel and Di Conlon swam up. We'll have to stop meeting like that. I was able to show them the new seahorse as well as the other three seahorses, the pygmy and the angler.

I stayed with Noel and Di for much of the rest of my dive. Di pointed out the Nembrotha purpureolineata and Noel pointed out the large Miamira magnifica. We didn't see the small one and Noel couldn't find the Ceratosoma brevicaudata.

I checked out the rock where "Di", the seahorse, has been and couldn't find her again. I wonder where she goes. I then left Noel and Di and swam to the boulders, did my safety stop and exited at The Steps.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

91 minutes

Maximum depth

20.7 m

Average depth

12.7 m

Water temperature

19.4°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

5:46am

1.55m

Low

11:54am

0.46m

High

6:01pm

1.55m

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.