Dive Details

Location

Date

Monday 29 May 2017

Time

8:41am - 10:12am

Details

Yesterday's dives starting from The Steps worked so well, I thought we'd repeat them today.

We jumped in at The Steps. While on the surface we remarked how great the visibility was and how we could see all the way to the sand line, 20 metres away. We descended to the sand line and turned left towards The Monument. Visibility was at least 20 metres, there was only a small amount of surge and the water temperature was between 19 and 20°C.

We followed the sand line but up just a bit so we could look for animals. We spotted one weedy seadragon before reaching Block Rock. It was one of the two we saw yesterday. Just past Block Rock I spotted a little orange painted angler. It wasn't the smallest I'd seen but was still quite small.

We swam to the Deep Wall and I found the orange red-fingered angler on top of the wall. It's been in that spot for a week now.

We continued along the wall and I found the female ornate ghostpipefish back in the spot we first saw it. It was just hovering making it very easy to photograph.

I swam on to the low rock with the Carijoa colonies. The soft corals were covered in snot algae (like many of the rocks at the moment) and this made it difficult to find anything. I didn't find any of the pygmies I'd seen there previously.

I headed up to the flat sloping rock and found the little red male pygmy pipehorse and then the tiny juvenile and the cryptic male.

I then headed back towards The Steps and shallower to the sponge garden behind the Deep Wall. I hadn't looked for pot-bellied seahorses there for some time. I didn't find any seahorses but I did find a Nembrotha purpureolineata.

I came back along the shallower part of the reef to the rock with the two White's seahorses. Roney was there and we also saw the small orange red-fingered angler on the rock below the seahorse's rock. I couldn't initially see the female but Roney saw her even lower on the rock. We both looked for the male who I eventually found in the sponges on top of the rock.

I swam up the reef even higher to the Capnella colonies and found the Ovula costellata cowrie.

I then swam on to Four Pygmies Rock. The red male was back in the sponge and I found the cryptic female below on the rock. Roney caught up to me here.

We then headed up over the North-South wall and towards the shallow East-West wall. I was hoping to find the grey red-fingered angler I'd seen yesterday. I found a grey angler but I'm not sure if it is the same one.

I was running low on air so we headed for the exit. As we were going to walk back along the rocks, I headed back to the little bay while doing my safety stop. We exited at the bay and walked back to The Steps along the rocks.

Buddy

Roney

Seas

Calm

Visibility

10 to 20 metres

Duration

90 minutes

Maximum depth

12.6 m

Average depth

9.8 m

Water temperature

19.3°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

5:16am

0.26m

High

11:21am

1.47m

Low

4:59pm

0.55m

High

11:24pm

1.96m