Dive at The Leap, Kurnell, NSW on Monday 1 February 2016

Dive Details

Location

Date

Monday 1 February 2016

Time

11:08am - 12:30pm

Details

Conditions were very calm at The Steps for our exit. It was a little rougher at The Leap but nothing to stop us from getting in from the low platform. On the surface the visibility looked to be around 5 metres and there was some surge. We descended and swam at around 30° to the sand line arriving at just past the north western end of the amphitheatre (near the rock where I last saw "Bob" and "Lucy"). Visibility was around 10 metres and it was quite cool at just over 18°C.

We swam towards The Steps. We hit our first weedy seadragon before Seahorse Rock. It was the one (PT2015081601) I'd first seen south of The Leap wall as a juvenile in August last year. At Seahorse Rock we saw another large juvenile (PT2015062401).

Just before Southern Cross Rock we saw a male weedy seadragon (PT2016020101) who I'd not seen before. He'd recently had eggs and there were some remnants on his tail. Just after Southern Cross Rock we saw a medium juvenile (PT2016011701). It was the same one I'd seen on 26 January.

In Seadragon Alley we only saw the one weedy seadragon. It was a male with eggs (PT2016012602) that I'd only first seen on 26 January.

Just after Seadragon Alley I thought I was looking at a very small juvenile weedy until I went in for a closer look and realised it was an ornate ghostpipefish. They are sometimes seen in Sydney but I'd never heard of one at Kurnell. It was thrilling to see and so beautiful.

After leaving the ornate ghostpipefish we saw another new weedy seadragon (PT2016020102), a male with a lot of old eggs and then we saw the female weedy seadragon with the deformed body (PT2014030901).

We swam past the basket star and on to Diversity Rock. "Daniel" was in the pink sea tulips and "Rosie" was next to the white honeycomb sponge on Diversity Rock. "Arnold" was in the green sponges on the rock behind Diversity Rock and the angler was on the left side of that rock. We were not able to find "Noel". Both pygmy pipehorses( IL2015123101 & IL2016011002) were in the Carijoa colonies.

We swam on to the other seahorses and found "Di" and "Mikhail" together in the sea tulips.

We headed for the boulders and did our safety stops before exiting at The Steps.

Buddy

Mike Scotland

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10 metres

Duration

82 minutes

Maximum depth

21.1 m

Average depth

14.2 m

Water temperature

18.1°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

2:49am

1.37m

Low

9:01am

0.72m

High

2:51pm

1.25m

Low

9:07pm

0.61m

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.