Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 5 November 2016

Time

9:16am - 10:49am

Details

It was quite calm and I was able to jump in from the low platform. The surface looked clear. I descended and swam at around 45° to the sand line. At the sand line the visibility was 15 to 20 metres but it was close to 16°C. I was starting to regret my choosing the wetsuit over the drysuit. I turned left and headed towards The Steps.

I saw my first weedy seadragon in Seadragon Alley and I saw 5 more before the end of Seadragon Alley. I still couldn't find the ornate ghostpipfish from a couple of weeks ago.

I swam past Big Rock and on to Hand Rock. I immediately found the female pygmy pipehorse but I was not able to find the male. This was odd as he's generally easy to find. I hope he's still around. I followed the sand line for a bit before heading up to High Pygmy Rock. I didn't find any pygmy pipehorses.

I descended to the sand line again and followed it to Old Basket Star Rock. I swam up the reef to the Miamara magnifica nudibranchs. They were both on the same rock again. I swam on to the basket star before swimming back to the sand line.

I followed the sand line to Diversity Rock. I looked for pygmy pipehorses on Diversity Rock and seahorses on the surrounding rocks but found neither. I did spot the juvenile roughy under the big rock just past Diversity Rock.

I continued along the sand line to The Steps. I swam up to the boulders and did my safety stop at Split Rock. I exited at The Steps which was very easy.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10 to 20 metres

Duration

92 minutes

Maximum depth

22.1 m

Average depth

14.6 m

Water temperature

15.7°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

12:23am

1.26m

Low

5:58am

0.62m

High

12:27pm

1.58m

Low

7:12pm

0.50m