Dive Details
Location
Date
Tuesday 23 August 2016
Time
10:11am - 11:38am
Details
Roger and I jumped in at The Leap: Roger off the rock shelf and me off the low platform. It was quite calm and the conditions looked great. We descended and swam at 30° to the sand line. At the sand line visibility was 8 to 10 metres and it was around 16.5°C. We turned left and headed towards The Steps.
We saw quite a few cuttlefish along the way. We saw our first weedy seadragon just before Seadragon Alley. It was one of the juveniles (PT2015062401) from last year.We got to the rock where we'd previously seen "Mikhail", the pot-bellied seahorse. who'd moved from The Steps during the storm. We couldn't find him on the rock. We started searching nearby rocks and I finally spotted him hanging on to kelp on a rock just below the one he'd been on. We spotted another weedy before leaving Seadragon Alley. This was a juvenile (PT2016073102) from this year.
We continued on to and then past Big Rock. Shortly after Big Rock, Roger left me for the exit and I continued on to Diversity Rock via the basket star. At Diversity Rock I found the male pygmy pipehorse (IL2016082101) and then the female (IL2016061401). I looked for more but couldn't find any.
I made my way along the reef to where the other seahorses used to be and then cut across to the boulders to do my safety stop. I exited at The Steps where Roger was waiting.
Buddy
Roger Lee
Seas
Slight
Visibility
5 to 10 metres
Duration
87 minutes
Maximum depth
21.8 m
Average depth
14.7 m
Water temperature
16.4°C
Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand
Tides at Botany Bay AEST
Note that tides at dive site may vary from above location.
Low
5:42am
0.31m
High
12:00pm
1.62m
Low
6:11pm
0.44m
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.
Dendrophylliid coral. 21.5 m.
Dendrophylliid coral. 21.6 m.
Reaper cuttlefish, Sepia mestus. 19.5 m.
Reaper cuttlefish, Sepia mestus. 19.1 m.
Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus, (PT2015062401). 19.1 m.
Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Mikhail"). 17.5 m.
Male pot-bellied seahorse, Hippocampus abdominalis, ("Mikhail"). 17.6 m.
Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus, (PT2016073102). 17.6 m.
Weedy seadragon, Phyllopteryx taeniolatus, (PT2016073102). 17.3 m.
Mourning cuttlefish, Sepia plangon. 16.8 m.
Reaper cuttlefish, Sepia mestus. 15.5 m.
Reaper cuttlefish, Sepia mestus. 15.3 m.
Reaper cuttlefish, Sepia mestus. 12.3 m.
Basket star, Astrosierra amblyconus. 12.7 m.
Male Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri, (IL2016082101). 13.2 m.
Male Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri, (IL2016082101). 13.3 m.
Female Sydney pygmy pipehorse, Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri, (IL2016061401). 13.4 m.
Reaper cuttlefish, Sepia mestus. 10.3 m.