Dive Details

Location

Date

Friday 14 April 2017

Time

8:28am - 9:52am

Details

The water at The Steps looked a bit rougher than the conditions we'd had at The Monument on Wednesday but it was still diveable.

We jumped in at The Steps and descended to the sand line. Visibility was around 3 metres and there was a lot of surge. Water temperature was around 21°C. It was surprising that the visibility was worse than Wednesday even though the waters were supposedly more calm.

We turned right and headed towards The Leap. We hadn't gone far when we came on a weedy seadragon. It was the one that was missing the end of its tail. A little further on we found another weedy.

At Little Big Rock I looked for the pygmy pipehorse I had seen the last two dives but couldn't find it. It may have gone.

We continued on and just before Diversity Rock I found the female pygmy pipehorse I'd found 2 weeks ago. I showed it to the others, including Ves and Rob who were also diving at The Steps.

We swam over Diversity Rock and on to Miamira Rock and the basket star. I looked around for the nudibranchs but could not see them.

We followed the reef to where Roney's pygmies had been. I was hoping to find the two pygmies I'd seen here 2 weeks ago but I could not find them. The visibility was probably only 2 metres now and the surge was quite strong.

We kept going to Big Rock and I looked at Hand Rock and the surrounding rocks for pygmies but found none.

We turned around and headed back towards The Steps. Not far from Hand Rock I found a new pygmy pipehorse. She's a small white female. I looked around for a male but couldn't see one.

We headed back past Diversity Rock and I saw the pygmy again. We then headed for the boulders checking out the rocks on the way for interesting animals. I spotted a juvenile black-spotted pufferfish in the rocks. I have seen loads of these in the tropics but never in Sydney. What a cool find.

We started our safety stop while swimming to Split Rock. When we finished we surfaced to check the conditions before attempting the exit at The Steps. It wasn't too bad and we swam in and made an easy exit.

Buddy

Daniel Jones, Dama Rodrigues, Mike Scotland

Seas

Surgy

Visibility

2 to 5 metres

Duration

84 minutes

Maximum depth

14.5 m

Average depth

12.1 m

Water temperature

20.8°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

4:14am

0.48m

High

10:15am

1.44m

Low

4:01pm

0.56m

High

10:26pm

1.67m