Dive at Bare Island, La Perouse, NSW on Sunday 29 March 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 29 March 2015

Time

8:44am - 10:19am

Details

I was desperate to find a pygmy pipehorse as I hadn't seen any on my last three dives (one at Bare and two dives at The Leap). I got in on the northern side of the island as far west as I could without going through the swimming pool. I descended and headed west along the boulders. The visibility here was around 5 metres. I went past the outboard motor and up over the shelf and followed the rocks around to the top of the slope.

As I moved down the slope I started looking very carefully for pygmy pipehorses. Neither sentry was there and I believe they have moved on after being disturbed by divers. Not far down the slope from where the sentries were I came across a medium sized pygmy pipehorse. It is possible this was one of the sentries but I can't be sure.

I moved further down the slope to the rocks with the pink sea tulips hoping to find some of the pygmies we'd seen a week ago but I wasn't able to find any.

It was still early in the dive and as I'd found a pygmy already I thought I'd go exploring. I went all the way down the slope and around the corner to the caves. Visibility was around 5 metres down the slope but improved around the corner. The visibility was so good I decided to follow the wall south and then east.

When I got to the south west corner of the wall the visibility was around 10 metres so went to find the seahorses. I found the spot without much trouble but could only find the one seahorse, "Tomas", I don't know where "Della" was and I didn't have a lot of time to look as I had to make it back around the corner.

I headed north from the seahorse area until I hit the shallow wall. I saw a moorish idol swimming around the wall. I then headed west to the south west corner and followed the wall north to the cave and then around the corner and up the slope to the east. The pygmy pipehorse was still in the same area although had moved to a different alga.

I ascended to 5 metres and did my safety stop while swimming north east to the boulders and then followed the boulders to the exit on the northern side of the island.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

95 minutes

Maximum depth

16.7 m

Average depth

10.4 m

Water temperature

21.6°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

4:45am

1.48m

Low

11:33am

0.59m

High

5:44pm

1.24m

Low

11:23pm

0.72m

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.