Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 24 November 2018

Time

11:18am - 12:24pm

Buddy

Nicolas Lim

Seas

Strong current

Visibility

1 to 3 metres

Duration

66 minutes

Surface interval

 1:28 (hh:mm)

Maximum depth

13.5 m

Average depth

9.9 m

Water temperature

17°C
                                       

Dive Profile from Garmin Descent Mk1

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

Low

3:13am

0.36m

High

9:41am

1.88m

Low

4:13pm

0.23m

High

10:14pm

1.45m

Details

For my second dive today I was diving The Monument. It would be an outgoing tide so I'd start at the western end of the East-West Wall and end at the protected area on the way to The Steps. Nick Lim was joining me so he could see some pygmy pipehorses. I was planning to start the second dive at 10:30, an hour after high tide, but as Nick was running late we didn't start the dive until nearly 2 hours after high tide.

We walked out through the channel in the rocks in front of the flagpoles and swam out to the start of the wall. We descended and were immediately hit by a very strong current. The visibility was only a metre or two. The water temperature was around 17°C. We rode the current eastward along the base of the wall.

I somehow managed to find the isolated rock with Mandy's pygmy pipehorses. I pointed out the male to Nick and started looking for the female. I never found her but Nick says he saw her.

We continued for a short while until I realised that the visibility was too poor to find anything so we headed to the top of the wall and rode the current to the eastern end of the wall. We dropped down the wall and then cut the corner to the NW-SE Wall. The current was still pretty strong here. We passed the first couple of rocks at the base of the wall and I was looking for the Valley of the Pygmies. The current was way too strong and we were ripped straight past it. Before I knew it we were passing Split Rock. I tried to find the slope but again the current was too strong.

I managed to stop at the rock above the Deep Wall and I looked for the male pygmy pipehorse there. I couldn't find him.

We dropped over the wall and along past where the pot-bellied seahorses used to be. I had a quick look for the seahorses but the current was too strong to stay for long.

We drifted past the end of the deep wall and I headed over to Pygmy Hollow. It is amazing to think we made to here in 21 minutes since the first pygmies near the western end of the East-West Wall. I managed to stop here and look for pygmies. I found the male near the white honeycomb sponge and pointed him out to Nick. I then looked on the adjacent rock and found a dark red male and a cryptic female. I then went back to the gap between the rocks and saw the pink female at the bottom of the gap.

I still had over 100 bar of air left and was contemplating drifting to The Steps but Nick only had 50 bar so we headed for the exit. I lost Nick initially but he managed to find me and we swam to the shallow wall and along the base of the wall doing our safety stops. When we had finished we ascended to the shelf and waded out.