Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 6 June 2015

Time

8:54am - 10:09am

Details

It was nice and calm at The Leap with just the occasional set of larger waves coming through. I slid down the wall and jumped in next to the low shelf. Visibility at the entry point was at least 5 metres and I could see a bit of surge in the kelp. I descended and swam at around 60° to the sand line. I arrived in the middle of the amphitheatre.

I swam to the flat top rock covered in sponges to the north west of Pygmy Rock. There was a weedy seadragon just below the flat top rock. This was one I had not seen before.

I swam over the flat top rock to Pygmy Rock and it was tough going as the incoming tidal current was quite strong. I found a (the?) pygmy pipehorse almost immediately on top of the rock but the tidal current and surge made it quite difficult to photograph and I spend almost 15 minutes taking just 10 photos.

I headed off towards The Steps. I could not see the weedy seadragon after I came over the flat top rock so it was lucky I took photos of it prior to going to Pygmy Rock. I arrived at the rock where "Pierre", the male pot-bellied seahorse, now lives and found him almost immediately. He was on the sponge next to the one we'd seen him last weekend.

I continued on to Seadragon Alley and saw one weedy seadragon before I got there. This was one I have seen a few times in that area since the beginning of the year. I saw four more weedies in Seadragon Alley all I had seen before, including the juvenile and the one with the wavy body.

After Seadragon Alley I headed to the top of the reef in the hope of finding the Miamira magnifica nudibranch but as I hadn't taken notice of where we saw it was not at all surprising that I couldn't find it.

I ascended to the boulders and did my safety stop just past the Plesiastrea colonies and exited at The Steps.

Seas

Slight surge

Visibility

10+ metres

Duration

74 minutes

Maximum depth

21.8 m

Average depth

15.6 m

Water temperature

18.8°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

5:01am

0.35m

High

11:04am

1.42m

Low

4:39pm

0.57m

High

11:06pm

1.86m

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.

Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri. 20.9 m.
 

Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Pierre"). 19.3 m.
 

Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 18.4 m.
 

Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 17.2 m.
 

Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 18.2 m.
 

Juvenile weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus. 16.6 m.