Dive Details
Location
Date
Sunday 10 December 2017
Time
1:36pm - 3:05pm
Details
The first dive at The Leap was so good we did a second dive at The Steps. I'd dived longer than the others so I would get a much shorter surface interval. It was less than an hour but I trust my computer and watch my non decompression limit.
Mandy, Bretty, Tony, and I jumped in at The Steps and grouped on the surface before descending. We dropped to the sand line. Visibility was still at least 10 metres and the water temperature was between 18 and 19°C. There was a small amount of surge.
I was in front as we swam along the sand line. I stopped at the first pair of red Stigs and showed Mandy. I swam on and found the Nembrotha sp. nudibranch and pointed it out to Tony when He caught up.
I continued on to Little Big Rock. I found the orange painted angler on its usual rock as well as the salmon red-fingered angler in its usual place on the same rock. When Brett swam up to look at the orange painted angler he noticed a male pygmy pipehorse in front of it.
We swam on. I spotted the Nembrotha purpureolineata nudibranch just before Diversity Rock. I swam up towards New Basket Star Rock and started looking in the clumps of red algae on the sand nearby. We'd seen red Stigs here before and pethaps I could find another one. I did better than that, I found a pair. They both seemed quite small so they may not be the pair that were in the area before but perhaps my scale judging is not good. I was so pleased to find another pair.
I swam past the basket star on the green hand sponge before heading for Big Rock along the top of the reef. I had to keep my eye on my No Deco Limit due to the earlier dive and short surface interval. Near Big Rock I dropped down near the sand line and saw the black painted angler in the same purple sponge it had been on the earlier dive. I then found the white red-fingered angler where it had been on the previous dive. When the others caught up I pointed out both anglers and swam on to Big Rock.
On Big Rock I spotted the two pygmy pipehorses on the top edge of Big Rock. I pointed them out to Mandy. When she was ready we swam across to the other pygmies I'd shown her yesterday. I found the male, the female and a juvenile but I'm not sure if it is the regular juvenile.
I asked Mandy how much air she had left. If she had more than 80 bar I was going to take her to the seahorse. She had 90 and I had 86 bar. It would be close. We swam to the great seahorse. She was in the green hand sponge. I then checked on the pair of red Stigs.
I had less than 5 minutes of NDL. I let Mandy know and we made a bee line for shallower water. As we headed past the rock with the pygmies Mandy took some more shots while I got shallower. Shortly after that I spotted a weed seadragon in the kelp. That put me close to my NDL again so I ascended to 10 metres and we swam along the rocks. Be bumped into Tony and he joined us as we sawm to The Steps. I ascended to 5 metres and started my safety stop as we swam to Split Rock. My safety stop was done by the time we got to Split Rock so we swam to the exit. The exit was easy.
Buddy
Mandy Durand
Seas
Slight
Visibility
10 metres
Duration
88 minutes
Maximum depth
16.6 m
Average depth
11.5 m
Water temperature
18.3°C
Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand
Tides at Botany Bay AEDT
Note that tides at dive site may vary from above location.
High
2:54am
1.35m
Low
8:35am
0.63m
High
2:50pm
1.59m
Low
9:37pm
0.40m
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 great seahorse, Hippocampus kelloggi. 15.5 m.