Dive at Gorgeous Reef, Henry Head, NSW on Saturday 5 December 2015

Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 5 December 2015

Time

10:42am - 11:55am

Details

The second dive of the day was at Henry Head. I love this place. I was hoping to see one or more seahorses and was assured of seeing weedy seadragons and maybe red indianfish and anglers.

We headed down the anchor line. Once again the surface visibility was poor but it opened up once we hit the bottom. The anchor was right next to the upturned boat so it would be easy to find on the way back.

We swam to the edge of the reef and then headed south along the reef. We swam past the rock where "Halle", "Bernard" and "Lee", pot-bellied seahorses, used to be but I could not find any seahorses there at all. We continued on and on the next rock I spotted a grey red-fingered angler.

We continued on to Seahorse Rock. I looked at it very carefully and could not find any seahorses on it or any of the surrounding rocks.

We followed the sand line into deeper water. We came across a weedy seadragon on the way down. We also encountered a large school of striped catfish. I swam into the school and they initially parted but they then closed in around me. It is thrilling to be surrounded by fish like that.

We swam further to the south before turning and coming back. On the way back we saw the same weedy we saw on the way down as well as another and a red indianfish.

On the way back I had another look around seahorse rock before heading back to the anchor. Martin and Anand were on their way out as we were coming back so I took them to the angler before circling back to the anchor. We did out safety stop on the anchor line.

Buddy

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

72 minutes

Maximum depth

19.8 m

Average depth

14.1 m

Water temperature

18.9°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

4:47am

1.33m

Low

10:45am

0.73m

High

4:42pm

1.31m

Low

11:05pm

0.53m

Camera gear

Camera

Nikon D7000

Lens

Nikon AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR +5 diopter

Housing

Ikelite 6801.70

Lens port

Ikelite 6" Dome Port 5503.50

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.