Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 16 April 2017

Time

9:45am - 10:45am

Details

There was a combination of a southerly swell and and easterly swell hitting the coast but it didn't look too bad from the top of the stairs at The Leap. The water didn't look all that clear but it would be OK for a dive.

We jumped in at The Leap: I slid down the wall and Daniel got in from the low platform. Visibility on the surface was not too bad. When we were ready we descended and swam at around 30° to the sand line. On the way there the visibility was around 5 metres but the last few metres in depth was like swimming into soup and the visibility dropped to around a metre. At the sand line it was very difficult to see and there was quite a lot of surge. We turned left and made our way towards The Steps.

It was relatively easy to navigate our way along by sticking to the sand but I found it difficult to know exactly where we were because I could only see the rock we were passing. I just followed the sand line from rock to rock and eventually came on the rock where Ian's pygmies had been and the four pygmies had been 2 weeks ago. I found the red male (IL2017040202) almost immediately because he stands out but I was not able to find the three other pygmies with the surge and all the particulate matter that was being washed around.

We continued on. As we approached Seahorse Rock the visibility improved slightly so that I knew where we were from then on. Just past Seahorse Rock I spotted a weedy seadragon.

We swam on to Southern Cross Rock. I looked on the side of the rock and found a small white male pygmy pipehorse. I then spotted a cryptic female below it.

We picked up the pace a bit as Daniel was down to 100 bar. We sped through Seadragon Alley without seeing any weedy seadragons and were at Big Rock quite quickly. I had a quick look on Hand Rock and surrounding rocks for pygmies but found none.

We continued on and only a little further along I found the little white female pygmy pipehorse I'd found on Friday. She was in the same place.

Daniel only had around 70 bar now so we headed up the reef. We swam past the basket star and then Diversity Rock. I quickly found the female pygmy to the north of Diversity Rock before we made a bee line for the boulders. We started our safety stop and then finished at Split Rock. We exited at The Steps and while the water was a bit messy, the exit was easy.

Buddy

Daniel Jones

Seas

Surgy

Visibility

1 to 5 metres

Duration

60 minutes

Maximum depth

21.9 m

Average depth

15.5 m

Water temperature

20.6°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

5:38am

0.56m

High

11:36am

1.32m

Low

5:13pm

0.68m

High

11:41pm

1.60m