Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Saturday 2 January 2016

Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 2 January 2016

Time

9:22am - 10:54am

Details

I left the ute at The Steps and walked up in full gear to The Leap. It was a lot rougher at The Leap than it had been at The Steps but still not too rough for me get in from the low platform. The surface was quite choppy and the visibility was less than 5 metres. I descended and swam at around 60° to the sand line. I arrived near Pygmy Rock. The visibility was around 10 metres and there was a lot of surge. Water temperature was around 18°C.

I followed the sand line to Seahorse Rock where the large school of striped catfish were still congregating. They've been there a couple of weeks now.

I continued on and stopped in the gap between the large rocks and found two of the large juvenile weedy seadragons (PT2015062401, PT2015081601). They are both getting quite large and I should probably stop calling them juveniles.

I swam on to Seadragon Alley where I saw 4 weedy seadragons: a male with eggs (PT2014030803), 2 females (PT2014092001, PT2014030901) and a large juvenile (PT2015050901).

I continued along the sand line towards Big Rock and saw another male with the remnants of eggs (PT2014091301).

After Big Rock I swam up the reef to the two pygmy pipehorses. Both (IL2015072601, IL2015121201) looked like they hadn't move since Thursday. The surge made photography difficult.

I went back to the sand line and spotted another male weedy with eggs (PT2015061401). As I swam past the basket star I noticed it was half open. Just past the basket star I found the the two newer pygmy pipehorses (IL2015121501 and IL2105122201). The surge here was pretty severe and taking photos of pygmies was nearly impossible.

I swam on to Diversity Rock. I found "Rosie", the seahorse, straight away as she was on Diversity Rock up near the Carijoa. "Arnold" was in the sponges on the rock behind Diversity Rock and the angler was on the rock above and to the left. It took me a while to find "Noel" and "Daniel" who were both pretty much on the sand. I looked for the new pygmy pipehorse but the surge made it difficult to stay still.

My next stop was the other two seahorses, "Di" and "Mikhail", who were both on their usual rock. I headed to the boulders from here and started my safety stop as I swam to the exit. I got out at The Steps which was quite easy due to the lowish tide.

Seas

Surgy

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

92 minutes

Maximum depth

21.0 m

Average depth

13.4 m

Water temperature

17.5°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

2:53am

1.31m

Low

8:44am

0.74m

High

2:42pm

1.34m

Low

9:16pm

0.56m

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.