Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Sunday 18 January 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 18 January 2015

Time

2:54pm - 4:05pm

Details

A dive to have another look for the missing seahorses, "Southern Cross" and "Lucky", and also to show some cool critters to Kim and Tony.

We jumped in at The Leap, Kim and Tony from the top platform and me from the low shelf, descended and swam at around 60° to the amphitheatre. We swam over the white male pygmy pipehorse. I had a quick look for others but didn't see any.

We then headed along the sand line to Seahorse Rock. "Rosie" was on her rock as usual, although she was hiding on the side. I looked for "Lucky" but could not find him.

We swam on to the next seahorse location. "Pierre" was hiding behind his sponge but I could not find "Southern Cross" at all. The large scorpionfish I saw yesterday was still around. I hope it hasn't eaten her.

We continued on to Seadragon Alley where I saw 2 weedy seadragons. The first one was a male I have seen a few times before with a few eggs but he had no eggs this time. The second one was the one with a wavy body that I have seen since March 2014. Kim saw a third weedy seadragon. We followed the sand line all the way to The Steps. We saw two more weedies before the basket star: one I first saw in April 2014 but this was only the third time I had seen it; the other I have seen 5 times since first seeing it in November 2014.

After the basket star we saw three more weedies: one was a male with eggs who I first saw on New Year's Day 2014; another that I first saw in November 2014; and finally one that I was only seeing for the second time, the first time was the most recent New Year's Day.

We headed up into the boulders and along at 5 metres past the Plesiastrea colonies while doing our safety stop. We exited at The Steps.

Buddy

Kim Gibson and Tony Blinco

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5-8 metres

Duration

70 minutes

Maximum depth

21.2 m

Average depth

14.5 m

Water temperature

19.4°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

12:33am

0.47m

High

7:11am

1.73m

Low

1:53pm

0.37m

High

7:43pm

1.34m

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.