Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 13 August 2017

Time

8:26am - 10:03am

Details

I was working this afternoon but I had a chance for a quick dive in the morning and still have time to get to work by noon. The Monument had been so good yesterday I did it again. Neither Dama nor Mike wanted to dive so I was on my own.

I got in at the shallow partially protected area a third of the way to The Steps and waded out to the edge of shelf before descending. I headed to the sand line and turned left towards The Monument. Visibility was between 10 and 15 metres, water temperature was around 17°C and there was very little surge. I was greeted by the large blue groper with the scars on his left side. He stayed with me most of the dive.

Just before Block Rock I found the male weedy seadragon with eggs. The eggs haven't hatched yet but look pretty close. Just past Block Rock I found the little orange painted angler in its usual spot.

I swam on to the wall and found the black angler only a short distance from where it had been yesterday. The blue groper was getting pretty close to me so I took some video as I drifted backwards along the wall. Just as I finished with the video I was on line with the grey red-fingered angler on the wall.

I headed over the wall to the other side to look for the other orange angler. I couldn't find it initially because it had moved some way since yesterday. The groper made photography difficult because it get biting things off the rock and spitting them out dumping particulate matter over the angler. While I waited for it to clear I looked for the pygmy pipehorses on the next rock. I had only seen the female yesterday and found her again in the exact same spot. I kept looking for the male and eventually found him. I went back to the angler and took some photographs before moving on.

I went looking for Dama's red male pygmy pipehorse (and not finding him) before heading down to Carijoa Rock to look for the pygmies there. I found the pink male straight away and then found the cryptic female. I looked on the rock to the south east of Slope Rock for pygmies but found none. I then went to Slope Rock to look for pygmies there and found a male after some searching. I had another look for Dama's red pygmy and while I was looking I found a cryptic female. While I was photographing the cryptic female the red male appeared. I'm not sure where he'd been. I then looked for the red male Mike had found on Wednesday but couldn't find it.

I headed up to Seahorse Rock and found the male White's seahorse and both spindle cowries. I then went to the sand and found the little dragonfish to get some more video. While I was there a cormorant swam past which was funny to see. I started to shoot some video when my buddy, the blue groper kicked up the sand so I went to look for the egg cowries while waiting for it to clear. I found one egg cowrie.

I stayed with the little dragonfish shooting video until I got down to 50 bar and then I headed for the exit. I did a short safety stop and then exited at the little bay to the south east of the point.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

10 to 15 metres

Duration

96 minutes

Maximum depth

12.0 m

Average depth

9.4 m

Water temperature

16.6°C
                                       

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

5:56am

0.39m

High

12:14pm

1.52m

Low

6:14pm

0.55m

Species Seen

 

Species

Common name

Number
  Fish

 

 Antennariidae

 

Antennarius pictus

Painted anglerfish

3

 

Porophryne erythrodactylus

Red-fingered anglerfish

1

 

 Syngnathidae

 

Hippocampus whitei

White's seahorse

1

 

Idiotropiscis lumnitzeri

Sydney pygmy pipehorse

7

 

Phyllopteryx taeniolatus

Weedy seadragon

1
  Gastropods

 

 Ovulidae

 

Ovula costellata

Golden egg cowrie

1

Video