Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Thursday 1 January 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Thursday 1 January 2015

Time

1:50pm - 3:08pm

Details

My first dive of 2015 had to be at The Leap. Conditions did not look as good as they had for my last dive of 2014. The swell was about the same but there was a very strong easterly wind which made the whole bay look choppy.

It was easy for me to get in from the low shelf. I descended and the visibility was 3 to 5 metres. I headed to the sand line at around 60° and there was quite a bit of surge. The visibility improved the closer I got to the sand line and I hit the sand line at the north-western end of the wall. Visibility here was 5 to 10 metres.

I checked out the low rocks for seahorses and pygmy pipehorses but did not find any. I found the white male pygmy pipehorse in the same spot it has been for 3 months. As I was manoeuvring to get a photo of the white pygmy pipehorse I spotted a tiny red one less than 20 centimetres away. This was the same spot I'd seen a pink one 2 weeks ago. I'm pretty sure it is not the same one.

I checked out the rock where the larger pink male pygmy pipehorse had been hoping to find it again but I could not.

I swam along the sand line towards Seahorse Rock. Along the way I saw two weedy seadragons swimming quite close to each other. The first one I have seen numerous times in the same area. The other one I first saw two days ago all the way along at Seadragon Alley. That's a long way for a weedy to move in a couple of days.

I found "Rosie" and "Lucky" on the rock behind Seahorse Rock where they usually are. I continued on to the other seahorses and found "Southern Cross" out in the open and "Pierre" hiding on his usual sponge.

After the seahorses I swam through Seadragon Alley and then followed the sand line all the way to The Steps. Along the way I saw 10 weedy seadragons. Of the 10, 2 were new (to me), 5 I had seen 2 days ago (and of those 1 I saw for the first time 2 days ago). The 2 new weedies were very close to The Steps which is an area I don't often reach on dives from The Leap.

After the last 2 weedy seadragons, I swam to the boulders, did my safety stop and exited at The Steps.

Seas

Surgy

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

77 minutes

Maximum depth

21.4 m

Average depth

15.7 m

Water temperature

18.0°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

6:10am

1.64m

Low

12:48pm

0.49m

High

6:39pm

1.29m

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.