Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on 26/4/14

Dive Details

Location

Date

26 April, 2014

Time

4:52pm - 5:59pm

Details

This was our first attempt at a sunset dive at The Leap. It was already quite dark by the time we were ready to get in and would be fully dark by the end of the dive. It was a pretty exciting prospect.

We jumped in, descended, and swam to the sand line. We went slightly more north than usual trying to hit the sand line right near "Alex" the painted angler. We still hit a bit further south east but didn't have a long swim to hit "Alex".

Before we got to Seahorse Rock, Sheree pointed out a juvenile giant cuttlefish under a ledge. Behind Seahorse Rock we found "Rosie" and "Bob", pot-bellied seahorses, on their usual rock. Sheree then spotted three tiny Flabellina rubrolineata on Seahorse Rock. A little further along we found "Lucy" on in the same place we seen her on the earlier dive.

Just past "Lucy", we found a large school of striped catfish. We played them for a while. We could swim into the school and they'd initially part but would then come back and close in around us. If I put my bare hand into the school, one or two would give me little nips on the exposed flesh. It didn't hurt.

"Southern Cross", "Pierre" and "Richie" were in their usual location. Sheree also spotted a yellow boxfish but it had hidden by the time she tried to show me.

On the way to visit the pineapplefish, Sheree found a large giant cuttlefish under the ledge just before the pineapplefish cave. We then saw the pineapplefish.

After this we mad a bee line to the pygmy pipehorse so we could show it to Kylie. We found it without too much trouble.

We were running low on air so we made a dash to the Plesiastrea colonies for our safety stop and then exited at The Steps.

Buddy

Sheree Papuni

Seas

Surgy

Visibility

5-10 metres

Duration

66 minutes

Maximum depth

21.7 m

Average depth

15.4 m

Water temperature

21.0°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

High

5:43am

1.65m

Low

12:01pm

0.35m

High

6:19pm

1.68m

Video

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.