Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Saturday 13 February 2016

Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 13 February 2016

Time

9:16am - 10:42am

Details

The mission for this dive was to find the Miamira magnifia nudibranch I'd found yesterday before Seahorse Rock and get some photos of the emperor shrimp.

It was still calm in Botany Bay and we jumped in from the low platform. Once we were ready, we descended and swam at around 30%deg; to the sand line. Heather only had a 10.5L tank so she swam shallower than me to conserve air. We arrived near the rock that I last saw the pot-bellied seahorses, "Bob" and "Lucy" and the visibility was 15 metres or so. It was very cold, under 17°C, made all the more unpleasant by being 23°C at the surface. I was glad I was in my new semi-dry suit.

We got to the area where I'd seen the nudibranch and I started my search. It took me a few minutes but eventually I found it. Fortunately, the emperor shrimp was still on it. Unfortunately, the nudibranch was not in the best place for photography.

We swam on and I found a weedy seadragon (PT2015081601) before we got to Seahorse Rock. It was the one I'd seen as a juvenile south of the wall south of The Leap. Just after Seahorse Rock we saw another weedy (PT2015062401). This too was one I'd originally seen as a juvenile.

We swam on to Seadragon Alley. Here was saw 8 weedy seadragons: the new one I first saw on Wednesday (PT2016021001), the female with the cut first appendage (PT2013122201), another relatively new one (PT2015122201), a female (PT2015011102), a relatively new male coming to the end of his eggs (PT2016012602), one of the juveniles from last year (PT2015091101), a new male with no eggs (PT2016020102), and a another juvenile from last year (PT2016020102).

We continued on towards The Steps. Between Seadragon Alley and Big Rock we saw the female weedy with the deformed body (PT2014030901).

After Big Rock we headed up the reef to the rock with the pygmy pipehorses. Both the female (IL2015072601) and the male (IL2016021001) were there.

We swam back down the reef and past the basket star. I stopped at the rock with the chimney sponge and found a juvenile pygmy pipehorse (IL2016021301).

We continued on to Diversity Rock where we found "Daniel" in the sea tulips, "Arnold" in the sponges on the rock behind Diversity Rock, and "Rosie" on the rock to the left of Diversity Rock. Both pygmy pipehorses, the male (IL2016011002) and the female (IL2015123101) were in the Carijoa colony.

We headed to the other seahorses, passing the two Miamira magnifica nudibranchs together on the way. "Di" and "Mikhail" were on their usual rock.

We made our way to the boulders, did our safety stop and exited at The Steps.

Buddy

Heather Sutton

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10 to 15 metres

Duration

86 minutes

Maximum depth

21.2 m

Average depth

14.1 m

Water temperature

16.4°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

12:37am

1.62m

Low

6:42am

0.38m

High

12:53pm

1.64m

Low

7:13pm

0.33m

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.