Dive Details

Location

Date

Thursday 29 March 2018

Time

11:49am - 1:10pm

Details

I was Bare Island today for a photo shoot in my dive gear for an upcoming magazine article. Once the shoot was over I went for a dive. It was very calm around the island with barely a ripple on the water.

It was so calm I was able to get in from the western side of the island. I swam out and then descended and swam south to the Deep Wall. It was approaching low tide and the visibility was only around 3 metres. There was no surge but the outgoing tidal current was noticeable. The water temperature was between 20 and 21%deg;C. I dropped down the wall and turned right and swam along the wall.

I followed the wall to the west until I came to the large rock that sits out from the wall just lower than the top of the wall. This is my navigation marker for the yellow female pot-bellied seahorse. I looked around the sponges on the top of the wall and found the seahorse. She was hiding but enough of her was exposed for me to find her.

I followed the wall until in ended and swam past the area where the seahorses used to be 3 years ago. I then headed north to the shallower reef and followed it to the corner. I looked around for the Hypselodoris tryoni nudibranch I'd seen on my last dive here but couldn't find it.

I went around the corner and headed north to the caves. In front of the caves I found a Flabellina rubrolineata nudibranch that appeared to have eggs. I looked around for pygmy pipehorses but found none.

I continued to the bottom of the slope and found the white male pygmy pipehorse on the rock with the white honeycomb sponge. I looked around for the golden female but could not see her.

I looked around the bottom of the slope for red indianfish, nudibranchs, and anything else interesting but came up empty.

I headed up the slope checking all the spots I've previously seen pygmy pipehorses but found none. While I was looking at Pygmy Rock (where I haven't seen pygmies for a couple of years) I spotted a nudibranch I've never seen before. It was a Goniobranhus collingwoodi. I found no pygmy pipehorses on the slope at all.

At the top of the slope I swam along in front of the boulders and ascended to 5 metres and started my safety stop. I swam past the outboard motor and on towards the exit. After finishing my safety stop I got out near Carol's plaque.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

3 metres

Duration

81 minutes

Maximum depth

14.7 m

Average depth

10.8 m

Water temperature

20.1°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

1:12am

0.46m

High

7:30am

1.80m

Low

2:03pm

0.28m

High

8:11pm

1.57m