Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 17 December 2016

Time

10:46am - 12:28pm

Details

After poor conditions at Bare Island yesterday I did not have high expectations for the dive today. I still wanted to dive and both The Leap and The Steps looked relatively calm. It was also a hot day and would be good to get wet.

Kristen, John and I jumped in at The Leap. The tide was so high and the swell large enough that with the right timing it wasn't far from the top of the platform to the water. Visibility looked pretty good from the surface. We descended and headed at around 45° to the sand line. At the sand line visibility was 10 to 15 metres. The water was around 19°C. There was almost no surge. We turned left and headed towards The Steps.

Kristen and I got ahead of John so I went back to find him. He'd found a small giant cuttlefish. We continued on past Seahorse Rock, Bent Stick Rock, Southern Cross Rock and on to Seadragon Alley. I found a male weedy seadragon with eggs about a third of the way through Seadragon Alley. Kristen was running low on air and left us here as agreed prior to the dive. I'd gotten ahead of John and was moving slowly when I spotted another weedy seadragon. While I was waiting, Versnar, Daniela, Rachel and Robert swam through. By the time I'd finished photographing the weedy, John had caught up.

We swam on past Big Rock and started looking for pygmy pipehorses. I found a male just before and below Hand Rock. John found a female on a rock below Hand Rock. I showed him mine and he showed me his. We'd also caught up to the others but couldn't attract their attention to show them the pygmy pipehorses. After John had photographed his pygmy pipehorse he moved on and I photographed it. While I was taking photos of the female I noticed a male a few centimetres away.

I continued along the sand line to Old Basket Star Rock and then cut up the reef. I found one Miamira magnifica nudibranch but not the other. The basket star was on its sponge. I swam on to Diversity Rock looking for the other Miamira magnifica nudibranchs along the way. At Diversity Rock I looked for pygmy pipehorses but found none.

I continued along the sand line. Just before Little Big Rock I found a male pygmy pipehorse. While watching and photographing it I spotted a female. I swam on to Di Rock and had a quick look for the angler Mike mentioned before heading for the boulders. Once I hit 5 metres I started my safety stop and swam to Split Rock. I finished my safety stop and swam to the exit. The exit was easy.

Buddy

John Farrant

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10 to 15 metres

Duration

101 minutes

Maximum depth

22.4 m

Average depth

15.4 m

Water temperature

18.7°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

5:13am

0.43m

High

11:38am

1.92m

Low

6:22pm

0.23m