Dive Details

Location

Date

Monday 29 December 2014

Time

10:28am - 11:47am

Details

I decided to revisit Bare Island as the forecast was for am easterly swell. The water around the island was flat and looked clear when I arrived despite it being only shortly after low tide. I jumped in just south of the north western corner of the island and descended. The visibility was only 3 to 5 metres here. I headed south west at a bearing of around 225° as I wanted to get as close as possible to the seahorses. This took me to the wall but near the end so I didn't have far to travel to reach the seahorses. The visibility here was at least 10 metres.

I saw "Della", the pot-bellied seahorse, from around 8 metres away but it took me a lot longer to find "Tomas" and I also found "Andrey" who I couldn't find last week.

After looking around the seahorses for a while, I headed west along the reef. I found a red indianfish hiding beside a sponge.

I headed north to find the shallow wall and then followed it north west and then north around the island. As I got near the north west reef I started looking for pygmy pipehorses. I didn't find any but did find to tiny sea hares, Elysia sp. as well as a girdled pipefish.

I headed up the slope and across the northern side of the island and exited to the west of the ramp.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

3-10 metres

Duration

79 minutes

Maximum depth

17.2 m

Average depth

12.5 m

Water temperature

17.5°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

3:09am

1.47m

Low

9:10am

0.56m

High

3:16pm

1.46m

Low

9:45pm

0.40m

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.

Sea star, Petricia vernicina. 15.7 m.
 

Female pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Della"). 15.6 m.
 

Common Sydney octopus, Octopus tetricus. 15.8 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Tomas"). 15.4 m.
 

Female pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Della"). 15.7 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Andrey"). 16.5 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Andrey"). 16.6 m.
 

Reaper cuttlefish, Sepia mestus. 16.7 m.
 

Red indianfish, Pataecus fronto. 16.3 m.
 

Mosaic leatherjacket, Eubalichthys mosaicus. 15.6 m.
 

Sea hare, Elysia sp. 12.8 m.
 

Girdled pipefish, Festucalex cinctus. 11.4 m.
 

Girdled pipefish, Festucalex cinctus. 11.3 m.
 

Nudibranch, Chromodoris splendida. 9.4 m.
 

Common Sydney octopus, Octopus tetricus. 3.5 m.