Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Sunday 12 April 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 12 April 2015

Time

10:33am - 11:37am

Details

Conditions looked even better today than yesterday. I was able to jump in from the low platform while the others did the leap proper. Visibility was at least 5 metres at the entry point. We descended and headed to the sand line at around 60° arriving to the south east of the amphitheatre.

I checked Pygmy Rock once again for pygmy pipehorses but still could not find any. As we moved on towards The Steps I checked other rocks with no success.

On the way to Seahorse Rock we saw a single moorish idol. I have to assume it was one of the two we saw yesterday.

"Rosie" and "Pierre" were on their usual rock behind Seahorse Rock. "Pierre" is pregnant again.

We spotted one weedy seadragon just before the start of Seadragon Alley. I have seen this same weedy in this location a number of times previously. As we swam through Seadragon Alley we saw another 4 weedies, all of which I had seen previously, as well as a juvenile giant cuttlefish and a reaper cuttlefish. Just after Seadragon Alley we saw a 6th weedy and just like the others I had seen this one previously.

At Big Rock we moved up to the top of the reef. Just after Big Rock we came across a large giant cuttlefish that was stalking something. Ben was on the other side of it and saw it was stalking a small octopus which we watched it catch. This was the first time I had seen a giant cuttlefish capture prey and it was really interesting to see it change its colouration to almost black just like I observed reaper cuttlefish do as part of my honours. I wish I'd got it on video.

We continued along the top of the reef and past the shallow basket star on the finger sponge before heading to the boulders for our safety stop where we saw another moorish idol. We exited at The Steps.

Buddy

Debbie Cooke, Ben Lumen, Sean Bassett

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5-10 metres

Duration

64 minutes

Maximum depth

21.6 m

Average depth

15.3 m

Water temperature

20.5°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

High

1:30am

1.58m

Low

8:24am

0.53m

High

2:28pm

1.27m

Low

8:07pm

0.69m

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.