Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Sunday 17 January 2016

Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 17 January 2016

Time

10:09am - 11:45am

Details

As I was planning a second dive at The Steps, I once again geared up at The Steps and walked up to The Leap. It was close enough to low tide that I was able to jump in from the low platform. It was a bit choppy on the surface and the visibility was around 5 metres.

I descended and swam to the sand line at around 60° arriving near Pygmy Rock. Visibility here was at least 10 metres and there wasn't much surge. I turned and headed towards The Steps. I followed the sand line and I came across the first weedy seadragon behind Seahorse Rock. It was PT2015081601 who has moved down from the gap in the large rocks towards Southern Cross Rock. There was no weedies in the gap.

Immediately after Southern Cross Rock I found a male weedy (PT2014051701) with lots of eggs. A little further along and before Seadragon Alley I found a juvenile weedy seadragon. This one was bigger than the one near Diversity Rock a few weeks ago but was still small.

I reached Seadragon Alley to see the large school of striped catfish out on the sand. I saw three weedy seadragons in Seadragon Alley, a female (PT2015011102), a male without eggs (PT2014030803) and a large juvenile (PT2015122201). I suspect the large juvenile to be a male.

After Seadragon Alley I found two more weedies: a large juvenile (PT2015051001) and a male with new eggs (PT2014091301). I last saw this male on 2 January and his eggs were old so he's shed the old ones and mated with a female in that time.

I continued along the sand line, past Big Rock and up to the rock where the pygmies used to be. I searched again but I really think they are gone. I will keep checking this rock as I suspect some new ones might show up.

I dropped back to the sand line and past the basket star, which was partially opened. I stopped just past the basket star to check out the rock where I'd seen pygmies before. I was able to find the male (IL2016011001) I'd first seen last week but not the female.

I swam on to Diversity Rock. Initially, I was only able to find "Daniel" who was hiding in the pink sea tulips. I then found the angler on the rock behind Diversity Rock but couldn't see the pygmy pipehorses. I hunted around and eventually found "Rosie" and "Arnold" on the big rock to the left and above Diversity Rock. I came back to Diversity Rock and after looking more carefully found the two pygmy pipehorses, the female (IL2015123101) and the male (IL2016011002). Finally, I found "Noel" low down on Diversity Rock.

I headed over to the the rock with the other seahorses and found "Di" and "Mikhail" together in the pink sea tulips. I swam to the boulders and started my safety stop as I swam to the exit. I got out at The Steps which was easy due to the low tide.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5 to 12 metres

Duration

95 minutes

Maximum depth

20.7 m

Average depth

13.5 m

Water temperature

20.9°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

2:54am

1.51m

Low

9:00am

0.56m

High

3:04pm

1.44m

Low

9:28pm

0.42m

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.