Dive at The Steps, Kurnell, NSW on 4/1/14

Dive Details

Location

Date

04 January, 2014

Time

9:58am - 11:17am

Details

Conditions looked fantastic from the lookout above The Steps. It was quite calm and the water looked really clear. The very high tide had most of the platform at the entry/exit point covered in water.

We entered and descended towards the sand line. As we were still swimming over the kelp, a huge stingray swam by. Once at the sand we headed towards The Leap.

We swum up a bit from the sand line to find "Big John", the orange form undescribed angler. It was in the exact same location it had been since at least 22 December.

We headed back to the sand line and continued on towards The Leap. I noticed a Sydney cardinalfish with bulging cheeks. It was a male that was brooding eggs in its mouth. The eggs hadn't developed enough for the eggs to be visible so this will be something to check again over the next few weeks.

We pushed on, swimming by the basket star and Big Rock all the way to the location of "Dana", the red painted angler. "Dana" was in pretty much the same position as 1 January.

We turned and headed back to The Steps. At Big Rock we had a good long look for pygmy pipehorses but did not find any. Sheree found a Okenia mellita nudibranch close to where I'd seen the pygmy pipehorse on 1 January.

We stayed high above the sand line checking out the sponge covered boulders when I spied a Miamira magnifica nudibranch. This was only the second one I'd ever seen and was quite a bit smaller than the first one which had been hanging around only 50 metres away for some months. We both took note of the location so we could hopefully find it again. We continued high up on top of the reef and ended up at the location where "Robin", the yellow painted angler had been seen. We searched the area but could not find it.

We swam to the rock with "Big John" and then from there headed to the boulders for our safety stop. We exited at The Steps where the high tide made the exit quite easy.

Buddy

Sheree Papuni

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10-15 metres

Duration

79 minutes

Maximum depth

16.0 m

Average depth

12.3 m

Water temperature

19.5°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

4:53am

0.31m

High

11:19am

1.98m

Low

5:57pm

0.12m

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.