Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 5 February 2017

Time

2:24pm - 3:55pm

Details

For the second dive of the day I joined Brett, Mandy, John and Scott at The Leap. I got in from the low platform and waited on the surface for the others. When everyone was ready, we descended and swam at around 30° to the sand line arriving near LucyBob Rock. The visibility was over 10 metres, there was very little surge and the water was around 22°C. We turned left and headed towards The Steps.

I found the male of Ian's pygmy pipehorses (IL2017010601) but initially couldn't find the female. While others were photographing the male I located the female (IL2017012901) on the other side of the rock.

We continued on past Seahorse Rock and on to the flat sponge covered rock. I looked for the striped angler but couldn't find it. John pointed out a couple of Rostanga sp. nudibranchs on a red sponge.

I went on ahead past Southern Cross Rock to the delicate ghostpipefish. It was still there. The others caught up with me and I let them take photographs when I noticed Brett videoing something on the side of Southern Cross. When I looked closer I saw it was a small white female pygmy pipehorse.

It was at this point the previous dive and the fact that I was only using 23% nitrox for this dive caught up with me and I went into Deco. It was way too early to cut the dive short so I made the decision I would do a deco stop at the end of the dive and kept going but kept a close eye on my computer.

I swam through Seadragon Alley and saw two weedy seadragons.

I continued on past Big Rock and on to Hand Rock. I was only able to find the female pygmy pipehorse (IL2016123102) on the rock below Hand Rock. I could not find the male. I did find a male on a rock a bit closer to Big Rock.

I headed for Roney's pygmies and came across Brett who pointed out a white male pygmy pipehorse. He then left and I continued on my own.

I wasn't able to find either of Roney's pygmies and continued on to Miamira Rock. There were no M. magnifica nudibranchs there but the basket star was there. My deco time was now going to be 11 minutes so I headed for shallower water. I wasn't able to find anything interesting in water shallow enough to stop the deco time increasing so I just went to 5 metres, did a safety stop while swimming to Split Rock and then did my deco stop at 3 metres, adding an extra minute for safety before exiting at The Steps.

Buddy

Brett

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10-15 metres

Duration

90 minutes

Maximum depth

21.6 m

Average depth

14.6 m

Water temperature

19.0°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

3:43am

1.55m

Low

10:08am

0.55m

High

4:07pm

1.31m

Low

10:14pm

0.50m