Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 31 December 2016

Time

9:04am - 10:38am

Details

For my last dive of 2016 I had to dive at my favourite site. It was a little choppy on the surface and Roney wanted me to show his wife and him the Wall. Mike was coming, too. The plan was to swim out easterly from the shore so we were closer to the Wall when we descended. It was close to high tide and with the swell it wasn't a big drop to the water from the ledge. After we jumped in we headed out diagonally but Mike didn't want to fight the current and indicated he'd dive with the others. The three of us descended and headed at 60° to the Wall. We arrived near the northwestern end of it.

We descended the wall and started swimming southeast along it. After a short while Roney let me know he and his wife were going to head for The Steps (they were on air and had to watch their bottom time). I continued along the Wall looking for interesting critters. The visibility here was at least 10 metres and there was no surge. It was 16° which was a bit uncomfortable. After a while I turned around and headed towards The Steps.

I swam along the Wall and then followed the sand line to Seadragon Alley. I spotted one weedy seadragon on the sand just before Southern Cross Rock and a second just before the start of Seadragon Alley. I saw a third weedy seadragon in the middle of Seadragon Alley. Between Seadragon Alley and Big Rock I saw the smallest giant cuttlefish I have ever seen. It was around 4 cm long. At Big Rock I came on a diver watching another weedy seadragon.

I checked the rocks around Hand Rock for pygmy pipehorses and found a small male on the rock below Hand Rock. I then found a pair on Hand Rock itself. The surge had picked up by now which made photography a little difficult.

I followed the sand line until Old Basket Star Rock. I then cut up to the basket star's new location. I looked for Miamira magnifca nudibranchs on the rocks there but found none. I swam on to Diversity Rock and looked for pygmy pipehorses but found none.

I followed the sand line to Little Big Rock and looked for the pygmy pipehorse I seen on the last two dives here but couldn't see it. I swam up the reef to Di's Rock ever hopeful of seeing one of my seahorses (or the angler that Mike had seen). I then swam on to the boulders and started my safety stop while swimming to Split Rock. I finished my safety stop and exited at The Steps as Versnar, Daniela, Sue, and Xavier were also exiting. The exit was easy and the tide was high enough for me to just stand up.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

93 minutes

Maximum depth

22.4 m

Average depth

15.8 m

Water temperature

16.2°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

3:54am

0.49m

High

10:26am

1.79m

Low

5:03pm

0.34m

High

11:00pm

1.34m