Dive at Gorgeous Reef, Henry Head, NSW on 28/12/13

Dive Details

Location

Date

28 December, 2013

Time

9:10am - 10:25am

Details

We descended the anchor line and met up on the bottom, then headed to the sand line. The visibility was quite poor (around 3 metres) and it was difficult to find the land marks. Fortunately, it was a short swim to the first rock with seahorses. I found "Bernard" under the crevice on the lower side but could not find "Halle" or "Lee".

We continued on but because of the large gaps between the rocks it was very difficult to find Seahorse Rock. I ended up to shallow and had to make my way back down. Once I found Seahorse Rock, I managed to find "Nadja" quite quickly. It took me some time longer to find what I thought was "Pedro" in the sea tulips on the lower side. Only after looking at the photos did I realise it was a new seahorse (now called "Francis"). I eventually found "Pedro" amongst the sea tulips on the top of the rock on the higher side. I could not find "Daniela" or "Lotte" but the visibility was not conducive to finding much.

We headed a bit deeper to find the split rock and I found "Nellie" on top and "Desmond" in the gap where he usually is.

We then headed down to the sand line and followed it into deeper water looking for weedy seadragons. The visibility was better here and was up to 5 metres. We did not have to go far before we found a weedy.

We continued on a bit further to see what else we could find and found a large octopus under an overhang. We then turned and headed back to Seahorse Rock. The visibility had improved somewhat and was more conducive for photographs.

We'd lost Ben and Laurie by this time and Emma was running low on air so I took her back to the anchor and then made my way back to the first rock with seahorses to look for "Halle" and "Lee". I didn't find them, but did find a dwarf lionfish and a small red rock cod.

On my way back to the anchor I found a smallish giant cuttlefish. I didn't find the anchor again so did my safety stop in mid water and surfaced not far from the boat.

Buddy

Ben Drew, Emma Wilson, Laurie

Seas

Slight

Visibility

3-5 metres

Duration

75 minutes

Maximum depth

19.5 m

Average depth

13.4 m

Water temperature

19.6°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

5:14am

1.52m

Low

11:41am

0.57m

High

5:30pm

1.29m

Low

11:30pm

0.45m

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.