Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 23 September 2017

Time

8:32am - 10:26am

Details

The conditions (swell, tides and visibility) were finally good enough for a dive at The Leap. It had been 4 weeks since I last dived The Leap and I really missed it. Roney and Dama were starting the dive with me, but they only had 12.2L tanks (I had my pony) so they wouldn't stay long.

We jumped in and when we were ready we descended and headed towards the sand line. Roney spotted a fiddler ray in the rocks before we had gone very far so I stopped to video it. By the time I finished with the fiddler ray, Roney and Dama were gone. I swam to the sand line alone. I arrived at the sand line near the old Bob and Lucy Rock. Visibility was around 10 metres, water temperature just under 16°C and very little surge. The current wasn't all that strong. I started for The Steps.

I got to Ian's Pygmy Rock and immediately spotted a small red male pygmy pipehorse near the top of the rock. It has been some time since I last saw a pygmy on that rock.

I continued on past Seahorse Rock and amongst the big rocks before Bent Stick Rock I saw a pair of weedy seadragons. The male had a huge piece missing from his head. It was behind one eye and I was surprised he was still alive. It looked recent plus he had new eggs that were also recent. I don't know whether the damage or the eggs came first. The other weedy seadragon was a female.

A little farther on but still before Bent Stick Rock I saw two more weedy seadragons: a male with the remnants of eggs and a female.

I swam on to Southern Cross Rock. Here I found 4 pygmy pipehorses, 2 males and 2 females. It is possible one of the males is the yellow one I used to see.

Just after the rock after Southern Cross Rock I found another weedy seadragon.

I swam on through Seadragon Alley and around two thirds of the way through I spotted another weedy seadragon. At the end of Seadragon Alley I looked on the rock with green hand sponges and found a pair of pygmy pipehorses.

A little way past the end of Seadragon Alley I found a red widebody pipefish. I think this is the one that used to have a parasite as it's in the same algae I last saw the one with the parasite. There was another weedy seadragon just past the pipefish.

I swam on to Big Rock and found both my red male pygmy pipehorse and Roney's pink male.

Seas

Slight

Visibility

5 to 10 metres

Duration

113 minutes

Maximum depth

21.8 m

Average depth

15.6 m

Water temperature

15.8°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEST

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

Low

3:55am

0.38m

High

10:12am

1.59m

Low

4:23pm

0.42m

High

10:27pm

1.48m