Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Friday 21 August 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Friday 21 August 2015

Time

9:19am - 10:31am

Details

I joined the Friday Dive Club guys for a dive at my favourite dive site. Conditions looked great but a tad rougher than yesterday. We all jumped in; I slid down the wall as there was water over the low platform. We descended and headed to the sand line at around 60°.

As we approached the amphitheatre, a school of huge yellow-tail kingfish swam by. I was at the front of the group and these fish were only a metre or so from me. It was exhilarating. I hope someone got some video of it.

We swam through the amphitheatre to the sand line where the visibility was at least 15 metres. We headed towards The Steps. It wasn't long before we came across a male weedy seadragon (PT2015060601) with eggs. This was the same one I saw a few weeks ago and managed to get a photo of a baby seadragon emerging.

We continued on and came across another weedy (PT2014123001). I believe this is a female and I see her regularly near the amphitheatre.

We saw no more weedy seadragons until we hit Seadragon Alley. In Seadragon Alley we saw 5 (although I think Ian saw 6): three females (PT2015052401, PT2015011102, PT2014030901), a male (PT2014030803), and a juvenile (PT2015050901). One of the females was the one with the deformed body.

We continued along the sand line and came across a male weedy seadragon (PT2014091301) with eggs just near Big Rock.

I took everyone to the rock with the pygmy pipehorses and found both (IL2015070501, IL2015072601) of them there. I then went to look for the other one (IL2015072602) while PJ was shooting video of IL2015070501. While this was going on a seal dropped in on us. Neither PJ nor I were aware of this until we were told about it after the dive. Apparently it was quite playful and Graeme got some great video of it: YouTube: Seal at the Leap. It is so typical for me to miss the big stuff because I'm busy looking at the small stuff.

We swam past the basket star to the seahorses. I found "Noel" straight away and pointed him out to Graeme and PJ. While they were taking photos and video I set about to look for "Rosie". I eventually found her on the sand under the kelp and as I tried to photograph her she moved back to the rocks. When I looked up the others had gone.

I swam on to look for "Di" hoping to see the Miamira magnifica nudibranch along the way. I didn't find the nudibranch but "Di" was on her usual rock and not really hiding this time.

I still had plenty of air so I went back to the sand line to look for weedy seadragons. I found one (PT2014012602) that had no first appendage. I thought I had seen it recently but when I checked my records I hadn't seen it since April 2014. The only other times I had seen it, it was between The Steps and The Monument which I don't dive all that often so it isn't surprising I hadn't seen it.

I swam to the boulders, did my safety stop and exited at The Steps where George and PJ were waiting to help me.

Buddy

George Borovskis, Graeme Heard, Ian Jackson, Peter Jaques

Seas

Slight

Visibility

15 metres

Duration

71 minutes

Maximum depth

21.5 m

Average depth

13.3 m

Water temperature

16.2°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

6:04am

0.53m

High

12:32pm

1.43m

Low

6:44pm

0.66m

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.