Dive Details

Location

Date

Sunday 11 March 2018

Time

11:54am - 1:40pm

Details

I had planned to dive The Leap a little latter in the day but I went to Bare Island at 9:30am to meet up with Vicki Swinnerton and Ricky Chambers to get my mask I'd accidentally left on the rocks yesterday. I arrived at The Leap around 11:30 and decided to dive straight away. I bumped into Andrey, Dom and two other guys from Scubathlon and they asked me to show them some things so I started my dive with them.

We jumped in at The Leap. Even though the tide was still quite low, there was water washing onto the low platform. It wasn't bad enough that I couldn't get in from there so I did. The others got in from the shelf. After grouping on the surface we descended and I led them at around 0° towards the sand line. The visibility was initially pretty good but the closer we got to the sand line the worse it got. By the time we got there it was barely 2 metres so I stayed up a bit from the sand line.

We were still up from the sand line when we passed Seahorse Rock so I didn't see any of the weedy seadragons there. I looked around the flat rocks with sponges but again the visibility wasn't great.

I had a quick look for pygmy pipehorses on Southern Cross Rock but found none. I found the black painted anglerfish on the rock after Southern Cross Rock and pointed it out to the others.

We swam through Seadragon Alley. I found one adult weedy seadragon. I looked for the juvenile but could not find it.

After the end of Seadragon Alley I found the pair of red Stigmatopora sp. pipefish. They were in the alga at the north-west end of the area they have been in. I pointed them out to Andrey and the others. I then indicated that I was going to slow down here and the others continued.

I swam back to Seadragon Alley for a more thorough search for the juvenile weedy but I still couldn't find it. I then headed for Big Rock. On my way to Big Rock I spotted a Okenia hallucigenia nudibranch.

After Big Rock I looked at the base of the rock below Hand Rock for the pygmy pipehorses I have seen there previously. I found a cryptic female. I looked for a male but couldn't find one.

I moved on to Square Rock where I found both white male pygmy pipehorses. I looked for the female but couldn't find her.

I swam to the rock where the female White's seahorse has been. After a bit if searching I found her hanging on to a sponge.

I continued to the Sponge Hole and found the Miamira magnifica there.

I swam on to New Basket Star Rock and then looked on the sand for red pipefish. I found a weedy seadragon moving over the sand.

I headed past Diversity Rock and on to Little Big Rock. I looked on the rock behind Little Big Rock for pygmy pipehorses but found none. I looked around all the rocks in the area for anglerfishes, including the rock with the green sponge. I then saw the previous weedy seadragon on the sand. It had drifted all this way.

i went back to the sand line to check out the rock where the grey red-fingered anglerfish has been and found another weedy seadragon. I then swam to the boulders and started my safety stop while swimming to Split Rock. I finished my safety stop and then swam to the exit. As the tide was still low the exit was very easy.

Seas

Some surge

Visibility

2 to 8 metres

Duration

106 minutes

Maximum depth

20.5 m

Average depth

13.1 m

Water temperature

20.0°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

4:32am

1.43m

Low

11:25am

0.66m

High

5:23pm

1.16m

Low

10:57pm

0.74m