Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 18 November 2017

Time

9:15am - 10:58am

Details

It was still very calm at Bare Island and the water looked great, despite the overcast and rainy conditions. We got in on the northern side of the island to the west of the ramp and surface swam out. We descended to the sand. Conditions were much the same as yesterday. The visibility was 5 to 10 metres, there was no surge at all and the water temperature was approaching 15°C.

George led the way and I came up the rear. We swam over the outboard motor and along in front of the boulders to the top of the slope. George found a wobbeging shark under a rock at the top of the slope.

We headed down the slope. I was looking for pygmy pipehorses and was soon left behind by the others. I looked in all the usual places and paid particular attention to white honeycomb sponges because I'd seen two different people post photos of the same female pygmy pipehorse next to a white honeycomb sponge.

I got to the rock where the two white pygmies had been for some months last year. Right next to the white honeycomb sponge I spotted a female pygmy pipehorse. I think it was probably the same one from the photos I had seen. I looked around the area for a male but couldn't find one.

I continued around the corner and right on the corner I bumped into George and the others coming back. They were cold and were heading to the exit. I took George to the pygmy pipehorse and then headed back around the corner. I followed the reef to the edge just before the gap to the Isolated Reef and then headed south-west before coming back to the area in front of the caves.

I swam back around the corner and stopped at the pygmy pipehorse again. I swam on to the bottom of the slope and started looking for the seahorse again but could not find him. I didn't find the ref indianfish, either.

I made my way slowly up the slope again looking in all the usual places for pygmy pipehorses. At the top of the slope swam in front of the boulders to the outboard motor and started my safety stop as I swam to the exit. I got out on the rocks where we got in.

Buddy

George, Paula, Garry and Fabio

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

102 minutes

Maximum depth

15.0 m

Average depth

11.0 m

Water temperature

15.3°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

2:33am

0.43m

High

9:00am

1.70m

Low

3:27pm

0.39m

High

9:21pm

1.40m

Camera gear

Camera

Nikon D500

Lens

Nikon AF-S Micro Nikkor 60mm f/2.8G ED

Housing

Ikelite 6812.5

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.

Female Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri, (IL20171118). 13 m.