Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 22 February 2015

Time

10:01am - 11:22am

Details

Bare Island looked fantastic especially considering the impact of Tropical Cyclone Marcia which had only just hit the Queensland coast. I wanted to get in on the western side of the island but there was the occasional set of large waves coming through so I played it safe and got in on the northern side of the island and swam on the surface around to the western side.

I descended and headed at around 240° to the seahorses. I think I actually landed right at them but the visibility was only 4-5 metres and I lost my bearings and had to swim around for a bit to find the area. Once I was in the area I was able to find "Tomas" and "Della" quite quickly. I was not able to find any other seahorses.

I headed west along the reef for a while and then headed north over the sand. I came on a small rock, about a metre in diameter. It looked like it could host pygmy pipehorses and so I looked and found a tiny one (less than 20mm long).

I continued north until I hit the shallow wall and followed it west and then north. When I got to the caves on the corner I came on two other divers (from Scubathlon) who were looking at an eastern blue devil in one of the caves. It has been a few years since I have seen a blue devil at the caves.

I then headed west to see if I could find the anglers from last week. I am pretty sure I found the rock they were on but they were not there. Others had also suggested they had moved on. While looking for the anglers I found a fiddler ray, a crested horn shark, and a fine-spotted porcupine fish. I have not seen the latter before.

I headed east again and went in search of the weedy seadragon from last week. I found it just to the west of where it was last week. It no longer had any eggs.

I made my way to the exit stopping at a number of rocks along the way to look for pygmy pipehorses but found none. I exited on the northern side of the island.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

3-5 metres

Duration

80 minutes

Maximum depth

17.8 m

Average depth

13.1 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.

Low

5:37am

0.25m

High

11:51am

1.76m

Low

6:08pm

0.24m

Video

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.

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Tomas"). 16.3 m.
 

Female pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Della"). 16.4 m.
 

Dwarf lionfish, Dendrochirus brachypterus. 17.2 m.
 

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. 15.2 m.
 

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. 15.3 m.
 

Fine-spotted porcupinefish, Diodon holocanthus. 13.9 m.
 

Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 14.1 m.
 

Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 14.2 m.