Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Sunday 5 July 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 5 July 2015

Time

8:48am - 10:18am

Details

There was a boat with fisherman sitting directly out from the entry point just before I jumped in. It was sitting at a bearing of around 90° so I assumed it was on the wall and I wouldn't be going near it. I slid down the wall next to the low shelf and descended. The visibility was around 5 metres. I swam at around 60° toward the sand line and when I reached the amphitheatre I could see that the anchor line from the boat went to the middle of the amphitheatre. Visibility was around 10 metres.

As I was heading towards Pygmy Rock a huge stingray swam by. I went to Pygmy Rock and started looking for pygmy pipehorses. While I was looking the huge stingray made a couple of passes. I guess it might have been checking me out.

I looked right around Pygmy Rock without seeing a pygmy until I got back to the starting point and saw the same pygmy pipehorse I had seen in the exact same location 10 days ago. I'm not sure why I missed it on my first pass. While I was photographing it, with my fins right down between Pygmy Rock and the flat top rock with sponges, I felt something tugging at one of my fins. I looked down and couldn't see anything and went back to taking photos. The next thing I notice is my fin is being dragged from under me. I turn and realise I have been caught on a line from one of the fishermen in the boat above. He's really pulling on the line which has somehow gone through the hole on the top of my fins and the hook is stuck near my toes. I wrestled it for a while and finally broke the line - still with the hook attached to my fin with the line going through the hole. I went back to photography.

I then swam on to Seahorse Rock. Just past Seahorse Rock I was not able to locate "Pierre", the pot-bellied seahorse. He wasn't on any of the sponges I have seen him on previously and I could not see him elsewhere.

I continued on. I came across the first weedy seadragon just before Seadragon Alley. It was a female (I think) that I have seen a number of times since the start of the year.

In Seadragon Alley I noticed a green turtle hiding behind a rock. It hadn't seen me so I was able to get the GoPro ready and slowly peered over the rock before it decided to move on. I'm not sure if it swam off because of me, or the two divers with sidemounts that swam up beside me.

I saw two weedy seadragons in Seadragon Alley: a female I have seen since the end of 2013 and a male I have seen since March 2014. I saw another weedy just after Seadragon Alley: a male I have seen since September 2014.

At Big Rock I went up the reef a bit to see if I could find "Rosie" and also the pygmy pipehorse I saw last weekend. I couldn't find the rock that I saw the one on last weekend but I did manage to find another one in the same general area. I could just make out the basket star so it was around 10 metres from there.

I swam on to the basket star at the sand line and then headed to the exit via the other basket star as I was low on air. I started my safety stop when I reached 5 metres at the boulders and exited at The Steps.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10 to 15 metres

Duration

90 minutes

Maximum depth

22.0 m

Average depth

16.4 m

Water temperature

15.9°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

4:44am

0.25m

High

10:47am

1.50m

Low

4:29pm

0.47m

High

10:52pm

1.91m

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.