Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 7 May 2016

Time

10:14am - 11:41am

Details

On the second dive we were joined by Andrey, Joep, Scott and a guy from Belgium that wanted see a weedy seadragon. We jumped in at The Steps and when everyone else was ready we descended to the sand line and turned right towards The Leap. I was hoping to see the juvenile weedy seadragon I'd seen last Saturday but we didn't.

We continued along the sand line until we got to the rock with the large white honeycomb sponge. The visibility was good enough that I could see the rock with the seahorses from the sand line. We swam up to the rock and I pointed out "Di" to the others. I looked for "Mikhail" but I could not find him (I found out from John after the five that he was on an adjacent rock.

We swam back to the sand line and followed it to Diversity Rock. I found a weedy seadragon along the way so the most important part of the mission was complete. I also pointed out a Nembrotha purpureolineata to the others.

At Diversity Rock, I found "Daniel", "Noel", and "Arnold" in the sponges on the rock behind and I found "Rosie" on the rock to the left of that. I pointed the seahorses out to the others. I then set out to find a pygmy pipehorse and after much searching I found a small drab male just away from the Carijoa colonies. With my mission accomplished, John and I left Andrey and the others and continued on towards Big Rock.

We swam past the basket star and I spotted another weedy seadragon. We kept on to Big Rock. I looked for the ornate ghostpipefish I'd seen a few weeks ago but could not find it. I swam a little past Big Rock and found the weedy seadragon with the deformed body.

I turned and looked around on Big Rock for pygmies but found none. We then swam along the top of the reef to High Pygmy Rock. I looked again for pygmies but again came up short. We swam past the basket star to Diversity Rock. I took some more photos of the seahorses and pygmy pipehorse and then we headed to the other seahorses.

When we arrived at the other seahorses, both "Di" and "Mikhail" were there. "Mikhail" had moved from the other rock. We then headed to the boulders for our safety stop and we exited at The Steps.

Buddy

John Farrant

Seas

Slight with some surge

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

87 minutes

Maximum depth

15.1 m

Average depth

11.5 m

Water temperature

19.5°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

2:26am

0.23m

High

8:31am

1.68m

Low

2:28pm

0.32m

High

8:51pm

2.03m