Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Sunday 9 November 2014

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 9 November 2014

Time

9:39am - 10:47am

Details

It was only an hour before high tide when we jumped in so my low platform was well under water. I slid down the rock next to the platform and Di and Noel jumped in off the shelf. We swam around 5 metres along the wall, descended and swam to the wall at around 60%deg;. The visibility was already better than yesterday and when we reached the wall it was over 10 metres.

We descended the wall and drifted with the current north west along the wall. At the end of the wall I looked carefully for the two new seahorses, "Shirley" and "Andy" but could still not find them. I then moved on to the location of the white pygmy seahorse that Sheree found a month ago. It took me a little while to find it as it was hiding in the algae but as the white really stands out, I eventually saw it and pointed it out to Di and Noel.

As Noel was photographing the white pygmy pipehorse, I went to look for the pink one. It took me a little over 5 minutes to find it this time. It was still on the same rock but had moved again since yesterday. I showed Noel and Di and let Noel take photos. After Noel had finished I took some more.

By now we'd been at depth for a little over 15 minutes and as Noel and Di were on air, they were getting close to their non-decompression limit, they moved on. (I was on Nitrox and had plenty of time.) Shortly after they had left, I spotted a small red-fingered angler. This was the smallest one I had seen so far. It was not as small as the tiny citrus coloured painted anglers but was still small at between 2 and 3 centimetres including the tail. The other interesting about this angler is that the tips of the fins were more yellow than red. Immediately after the angler I found weedy seadragon.

I then swam on to Seahorse Rock. I wanted to check all the rocks along the way for pygmy pipehorses but there were so many rocks and so little time. I found "Rosie" on her usual rock behind Seahorse Rock.

I continued on towards The Steps and found "Southern Cross" and "Pierre" at their usual rock. There was also two reaper cuttlefish who were both a very deep red in colour at the time, although they quickly changed colour as they started swimming.

I swam on to Seadragon Alley where I found 4 more weedy seadragons, including one with a wavy back. I was starting to run low on air at this point and so I headed up the reef to the boulders and did my safety stop as I swam to The Steps. I had just finished when I arrived at The Steps. My exit was quite easy due to the high tide.

Buddy

Noel and Di Conlon

Seas

Choppy at the surface

Visibility

10-15 metres

Duration

68 minutes

Maximum depth

22.1 m

Average depth

16.7 m

Water temperature

15.6°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

4:11am

0.41m

High

10:37am

1.81m

Low

5:13pm

0.29m

High

11:14pm

1.35m

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.