Dive Details

Location

Date

Thursday 17 August 2017

Time

11:46am - 1:38pm

Details

Condtions in the bay looked so much better than yesterday. The wind had died down and there was hardly any swell noticeable. The surface water near The Leap looked clear.

I jumped in from the low platform and the first think I noticed was how cold the water was. Even in a drysuit I can feel the cold, especially on my face and hands. The water looked clear, though, and I knew I wouldn't get all that cold in the drysuit. I swam out some ways before descending and headed at around 60° towards the sand line. I was somewhat disappointed as I approached the sand line how the visibility was down from yesterday. I was expecting the 10-15 metre visibility I had yesterday but this was between 5 and 10 metres. To make things worse there was snot algae over all the rocks. I don't understand how it could appear overnight. The water temperature was under 16°C. There wasn't much surge but the current was very strong. I turned left and headed towards The Steps.

I found my first weedy seadragon before I arrived at Seahorse Rock. I then found the juvenile weedy just before Bent Stick Rock. It is quite large now an I may have to stop calling it "the juvenile".

I expected to see two weedy seadragons between Bent Stick Rock and Southern Cross Rock but I didn't. I'm not sure if I missed them or they have moved on. At Southern Cross Rock I found the pink male pygmy pipehorse immediately and then the yellow male shortly later. Photographing them was difficult because the current kept dragging me away. I had to dump air from my drysuit and kneel on the sand to try to stay in place. While I was watching and photographing the pygmies, I thought that two males was odd and there should be at least one if not two females. I started to look and found a female almost straight away. I looked for a second but was still frustrated by the current and gave up.

I swam through Seadragon Alley hoping to find the other two weedy seadragons but didn't see them. I didn't need to swim much because the current was dragging me along. At the end of Seadragon Alley I looked for the pygmies on the rock with the green hand sponges. After looking for some time I found the male but couldn't see the female. Once again the current made photography difficult.

I looked again for the red pygmy pipehorse with the parasite but was not able to find it before I ran into two weedy seadragons. I photographed them before continuing on to Big Rock.

After Big Rock I found the pygmy on the rock below Hand Rock. I looked on Slope Rock but found no pygmies. I stayed along the top of the reef and passed High Pygmy Rock on the way. I looked for pygmies there but found none.

I passed the area where the "birthday pygmies" were in 2014 and on to New Basket Star Rock. The basket was still on the white honeycomb sponge. I found the red widebody pipefish in the same alga as yesterday, to the right of where the pair used to be.

I swam on to Diversity Rock. I saw the Nembrotha sp. nudibranch on the way. At Diversity Rock I found a pygmy pipehorse low down in a small colony of Carijoa. I looked on the next big rock for the white male pygmy but could not find him. The current was really strong here and it was difficult to look.

I swam along the sand line hoping to see the male weedy seadragon with eggs I saw yesterday but I didn't see it. I stayed at the sand line right to the exit and then ascended directly to Split Rock. I did my safety stop at Split Rock and then swam underwater right to the exit. Greg was there and he helped my with my camera - although the exit was easy.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

111 minutes

Maximum depth

21.2 m

Average depth

14.3 m

Water temperature

15.4°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

High

3:46am

1.29m

Low

9:41am

0.51m

High

4:19pm

1.69m

Low

11:03pm

0.44m