Dive Details

Location

Date

Wednesday 12 April 2017

Time

8:54am - 10:00am

Details

The water around Sutherland Point looked quite calm, especially when compared to the waves that were pounding Bare Island across the other side of Botany Bay. There were small waves coming into the small bay around the corner form the flag poles but nothing that would stop us from entering the water there.

We got in from the small bay. As it was almost high tide we were able to swim out through the boulders and the small waves were no issue at all. We swam straight our, although I accidentally left Dama and Daniel behind and had to swim back to get them. We hit the reef in line with the end of the the deep wall. Visibility was around 5 metres and there was a small amount of surge. Water temperature was around 21°C.

We looked around the reef for a while before heading to the deep wall. We moved slowly along the deep wall towards The Steps. We went as far as Block Rock. Visibility improved to up to 10 metres in parts although it quickly dropped again with the change of tide. Just below block rock I spotted a dwarf lionfish in an orange sponge. As I was taking photos of it I realised one of my strobes wasn't working. On closer inspection I realised I'd flooded the battery pack. That's the 4th one I've flooded in around 5 years. Turns out this one was 100% my fault as I'd caught a cable tie in the seal.

We turned and slowly headed back towards The Monument. Before the deep wall, Dama pointed out two interesting nudibranchs and along the wall she pointed out an orange red-fingered angler.

At the end of the deep wall we checked out the reef. I was looking for seahorses, pygmy pipehorses and anglers. I checked over Split Rock and found nothing of interest. I also checked the nearby rocks for pygmy pipehorses and couldn't find any. I tried to find Dama's orange red-fingered angler for 3 weeks ago but I don't think I found the correct rock.

We eventually made it to the rock with the purple sponge where the 4 pygmy pipehorses had been. I initially found a cryptic one in the algae and eventually found one of the males at the base of the sponge.

Daniel was running low on air so we called the dive and headed up the slope. We swam along the shallow wall and into the kelp. The going was a bit tough with the surge and the outgoing tide that we surfaced once we hit 2 metres and swam the short distance to the shore. We got out at Sutherland Point.

Buddy

Daniel Jones, Dama Rodrigues

Seas

Surgy

Visibility

3 to 10 metres

Duration

65 minutes

Maximum depth

13.1 m

Average depth

10.5 m

Water temperature

20.7°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

2:57am

0.44m

High

9:01am

1.55m

Low

3:00pm

0.47m

High

9:18pm

1.69m