Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 29 May 2016

Time

11:35am - 1:09pm

Details

We jumped in at The Leap (I slid down the wall as the waves were washing over the low platform). Once we were ready we descended and headed at around 30° towards the sand line. We arrived just to the south west of the rock where I last saw "Bob" and "Lucy". Visibility was around 5 metres or so and there was a small amount of surge. We turned left and headed towards The Steps. The tidal current was raging again.

As we approached the piece of encrusted fibreglass I spotted a painted angler in a yellow sponge. I was pretty excited as I thought I'd found another new angler until I realised it was on the same rock as "Cam". A check of my photos after the dive confirmed it was "Cam". A little further on we spotted a weedy seadragon.

After Seahorse Rock I found "Ronnie", the tiny orange painted angler, on the red sponge where I'd seen it yesterday. I pointed "Ronnie" out to John and Versnar. I'm not sure they believed what they saw. On the next rock I searched unsuccessfully for the bent stick pipefish.

John and Versnar got away from me while I was looking for the bent stick pipefish so I had to hurry to catch up. I caught up at the start of Seadragon Alley where John was photographing a weedy seadragon. I had a look for "Steve", the orange painted angler but could not find it. I photographed the weedy seadragon and continued on. I came on two divers with another weedy seadragon and waited for them to move on before photographing it too. At around this point the visibility deteriorated to 3-4 metres. At first I thought it was the other divers but looking out on the sand I saw a huge cloud of yuck!

John went up ahead and Versnar and I swam to the end of Seadragon Alley and on towards Big Rock. The temperature dropped from 20° C to around 19° and the visibility continued to worsen and was barely 3 metres by the time we caught up to John who was photographing the female ornate ghostpipefish. I had a look for the male but couldn't find him. I did find "Sooty", the black painted angler just up from the ornate ghostpipefish. The poor visibility and surge combined with the black coloration made taking photos of it a lost cause. John and Versnar left me here.

I swam past Big Rock and moved up the reef a bit hoping to find some warmer water. I bumped into John as we made our way past the basket star and on to Diversity Rock. I found "Noel" in the sponges behind Diversity Rock and "Rosie" on the high rock to the left. John swam on while I looked for "Daniel" and "Arnold". I found "Daniel" on the low rock to the right of Diversity Rock but couldn't find "Arnold". I then searched for the pygmy pipehorse and eventually found him hiding in the Caijoa behind the white honeycomb sponge.

I swam on to the other seahorses and spotted a Nembrotha purpureolineata along the way. Both "Mikhail" and "Di" were on their usual rock. I then headed for the boulders and found a weedy seadragon just in front of the boulders on the sand. I ascended to 5m and did my safety stop while swimming to the exit. With my safety stop complete I got out at The Steps. The high tide made the exit quite easy.

Buddy

John Farrant, Versnar Chg

Seas

Slight with surge

Visibility

2 to 8 metres

Duration

93 minutes

Maximum depth

21.4 m

Average depth

14.2 m

Water temperature

19.2°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

High

1:06am

1.65m

Low

7:59am

0.49m

High

2:11pm

1.40m

Low

7:50pm

0.73m