Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Sunday 8 February 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 8 February 2015

Time

9:13am - 10:27am

Details

What a difference a day makes. The Leap looked so much better today that it had yesterday. The Sun was also out which made it quite warm but everything looks better in the Sun.

I slid down the wall next to the low platform, descended and headed at 60° to the sand line. I arrived at the amphitheatre where the visibility was around 10 metres and the water around 19°C. I made my way to the rock with the white male pygmy pipehorse. He was in his usual spot. I then looked on the other side of the rock for the one I'd found yesterday and eventually found one which I believe is the same one as yesterday. I then found a smaller brown male not far from the white male and finally an even smaller individual of undetermined sex. That's 4 pygmy pipehorses on the same rock at the same time! With the two pink ones I have seen on this rock not that long ago, that's 6 altogether. I'd spent 15 minutes at that rock so it was time to move on.

I followed the sand line to Seahorse Rock. I had a quick look on Seahorse Rock for seahorses but did not find any. I found "Rosie" on her rock behind Seahorse Rock but did not see any other seahorses.

I continued on to the next seahorse location but could not find "Pierre" or "Southern Cross". (After the dive I had breakfast with some divers from St George Scuba. They had dived around 30 minutes after me and they told me they had seen "Pierre" at The Leap end of his rock. They also confirmed they had not seen "Southern Cross" for a few weeks.)

I swam through Seadragon Alley where I saw 6 weedy seadragons, including one male with eggs and two that I don't believe I have seen before.

At the end of Seadragon Alley, I headed up the slope to the top of the reef and made my way to The Steps along the rock wall. I saw a giant cuttlefish in a crevice in the wall.

I swam to the boulders and did my safety stop as I swam. There was a strong head current over the boulders despite the incoming tide and the visibility dropped to around 3 metres.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

73 minutes

Maximum depth

21.9 m

Average depth

16.8 m

Water temperature

18.8°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

5:35am

0.52m

High

11:48am

1.57m

Low

6:07pm

0.43m

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.