Dive Details

Location

Date

02 November, 2013

Time

3:15pm - 4:16pm

Details

Entered at The Leap and descended to the sand line. The visibility at the sand line was 15 metres or more. This was much better than last week and today we were only one hour after low tide.

We moved slowly towards The Steps. At the rock behind seahorse rock we found "Bob", "Kel" and "Rosie". "Rosie" was now back on the same rock with the two males.

We continued on our way to The Steps. Before we arrived at "Southern Cross" we found a weedy seadragon, a small reaper cuttlefish, and a velvetfish on the sand. At "Southern Cross" we could only initially find "Richie" and "Pierre", "Southern Cross" was nowhere to be seen. After patrolling up and back along the rock I finally located her at the other end of the rock from where she normally is. Relieved that we had found her, we continued on towards The Steps.

As we'd spent quite a bit of time looking for "Southern Cross" we had to move fairly quickly to make sure we'd have enough air to look for the anglers. As we headed towards the basket star we passed 5 more weedy seadragons along the way, including one which we believe was a male that had previously had eggs.

The basket star was in its usual spot as was the Miamira magnifica nudibranch. After the M. mangnifca, we left the sand line to look for "Robin", the tiny painted angler I had found last week. I was able to zero in on it immediately. We then headed straight across to where "Little Andrew", a tiny painted angler, and "Big John", a yellow form undescribed angler were located. "Little Andrew" was in its usual spot and "Big John" had moved back to the rock above "Little Andrew".

We immediately headed for shallower water and a safety stop. We exited at The Steps.

Buddy

Sheree Papuni

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10-15 metres

Duration

60 minutes

Maximum depth

20.7 m

Average depth

14.4 m

Water temperature

19.2°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

1:37am

0.33m

High

7:58am

1.66m

Low

2:17pm

0.33m

High

8:16pm

1.51m

Camera gear

Camera

Nikon D7000

Lens

Nikon AF Micro-Nikkor 60mm f/2.8D

Housing

Ikelite 6801.70

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.

Nudibranch, Hypselodoris bennetti. 19.9 m.
 

Nudibranch, Chromodoris splendida. 20.1 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Bob"). 19 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Kel"). 18.9 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Kel"). 18.9 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Bob"). 19.1 m.
 

Female pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Rosie"). 19.3 m.
 

Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 19.3 m.
 

Velvetfish, Aploactisoma milesii. `18.9 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Richie"). 17.2 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Pierre"). 16.8 m.
 

Female pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Southern Cross"). 17.3 m.
 

Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 16.5 m.
 

Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 15.9 m.
 

Basket star, Astrosierra amblyconus. 12.8 m.
 

Nudibranch, Miamira magnifica. 12.8 m.
 

Tiny painted angler, Antennarius pictus, ("Robin"). 10.7 m.
 

Tiny painted angler, Antennarius pictus, ("Little Andrew"). 11.9 m.
 

Undescribed angler ("Big John"). 10.7 m.