Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 1 November 2014

Time

11:46am - 12:48pm

Details

Conditions were not ideal at The Leap but it is such a great dive an Sally desperately wanted to test out her new fins. We jumped in and surface swam along the shore for 10 or so metres before descending and heading to the wall at around 60°.

We reached the wall and the visibility was only around 5 metres but the wall still looked beautiful. We headed north west along the wall until we came to the rock where I had originally seen "Shirley", the juvenile female pot-bellied seahorse. I checked out the adjacent rock where I'd seen her last week and Sally found her back on her original rock.

We moved on to the white pygmy pipehorse and then Sheree caught up to us and said she'd found another seahorse. We headed back to the rock where "Shirley" was and Sheree pointed out a new young pregnant male. We shall call him "Andy".

We then headed to the rock where I'd found the pink pygmy pipehorse last week and I was able to find it quite quickly as it was in almost the same spot on the rock.

We headed towards The Steps when Sheree found a male weedy seadragon with a huge number of eggs on its tail. We continued on and found "Rosie" on her usual rock behind Seahorse Rock. Her head spines are still very prominent.

At the next seahorse location we found "Pierre". Sheree found "Southern Cross" but I didn't get to see her even though I was right above her. Just after the seahorses Sally found a young weedy seadragon.

We swam through Seadragon Alley without seeing a single weedy seadragon. The visibility was not all that great and we were moving quite quickly so it is understandable. We then headed to the top of the reef and swam quite quickly to the exit. After doing a safety stop straight out from The Steps we exited at The Steps.

Buddy

Sheree Papuni, Sally Glen

Seas

Choppy

Visibility

5 metres

Duration

61 minutes

Maximum depth

21.8 m

Average depth

15.8 m

Water temperature

16.4°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

3:55am

1.30m

Low

9:38am

0.59m

High

4:02pm

1.56m

Low

10:45pm

0.35m

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.

Juvenile female pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Shirley"). 20.7 m.
 

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. 21.1 m.
 

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. 21.2 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Andy"). 21.1 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Andy"). 20.9 m.
 

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. 20.3 m.
 

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. 20.6 m.
 

Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 20.8 m.
 

Male weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus, with eggs. 20.3 m.
 

Female pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Rosie"). 20.1 m.
 

Eastern smooth boxfish, Anoplocapros inermis. 17.2 m.
 

Reaper cuttlefish, Sepia mestus. 17.4 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Pierre"). 17.6 m.