Dive Details

Location

Date

Saturday 23 February 2019

Time

8:17am - 10:12am

Buddy

Sheree Rose

Seas

Calm

Visibility

1 to 3 metres

Duration

108 minutes

Surface interval

 5 days 15:35 (days hh:mm)

Maximum depth

8.6 m

Average depth

5.7 m

Water temperature

21.2°C
                                       

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Sydney (Fort Denison)

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

Low

5:56am

0.33m

High

12:10pm

1.76m

Low

6:28pm

0.31m

Details

There was a cyclone off the coast of southern Queensland that was bringing rough seas all down the coast. Kurnell was to be receiving big southerly and easterly swells and I thought it prudent to dive at Clifton Gardens instead. Plus it would give me an opportunity to look for all the anglerfish that have been there lately. Sheree joined me for the dive today, switching from her usual Sunday to a Saturday dive day.

We got ready and waded into the water inside the pool. As we were wading out, Sheree's fins kept falling off. Here spring straps weren't tight enough for her smaller boots. She headed back to the car to swap boots and I said I'd see her under the jetty. I descended and swam over to the net. It appears they had repaired all the holes in the net. I swam along it for a while but realised there was no way through. I swam back to the beach and got out just as Sheree was coming back after changing her boots.

This time we got in outside the nets, just to the east of the jetty. We waded out until it was deep enough, descended and swam under the jetty beside the nets. We swam past the end of the nets and down the slope under the jetty. Visibility was 2 to 3 metres which was ok considering the rain we'd had. The water temperature was between 21 and 22°C and there was no current or surge. There were no other divers around despite seeing a few heading in before us. The lack of divers was probably the reason the visibility wasn't too bad.

We hadn't gone all that far down the slope when we spotted a couple of octopus. We'd see a large number of octopus on the dive. Sheree even played with one. A little farther down the slope and Sheree spotted a yellow Striate Anglerfish.

On the eastern side of the next set of piers down Sheree spotted another Striate Anglerfish. This one was black. While black anglerfish are cool, they are almost impossible to photograph.

We continued down the slope, slowly, swimming from one side of the jetty to the other as we moved to the next set of piers. We were almost to the bottom when I spotted a small white Striate anglerfish on the western side. I'd seen people posting photographs of this anglerfish and was hoping to see it. It yawned while I was photographing it.

We headed all the way to the end of the jetty and looked around the rubble there. I spotted a brown Striate Anglerfish next to some kelp. I took some photographs and swam on. I then went back to find it again and found another one out in the open. I couldn't be sure there were two brown anglerfish until I found the first one again and saw it hadn't moved.

We hovered around the bottom of the jetty and then Sheree spotted yellowish female White's Seahorse. She then spotted another black Striate Anglerfish. That was our sixth Striate Anglerfish for the dive.

I found the white anglerfish again and took some more photographs and a video. Sheree spotted another White's Seahorse, this time a brown male.

We started to head west across the sand. I wanted to look for Tiger Pipefish. We hadn't gone very far when the visibility dropped to nearly nothing. A group of divers in training had just "swum" past and they were mostly kicking up the sand like bulldozers. Why can't dive schools teach their new divers buoyancy control before foisting them on other divers. Or better still, don't take them where others are diving.

I'd lost Sheree so I started to head back to the jetty only to be met by the bulldozing divers again. The visibility under the jetty was now ruined. I headed away from the jetty again and up towards the nets. I made it through the cloud of sand and started looking along the nets for seahorses. I didn't find any seahorses on the nets but I did find a bannerfish.

I headed along the nets back to the jetty and headed down the slope again in the hope of finding Sheree. The visibility had improved a bit after the newbie divers but was still less than what it had been when we first got in.

I hadn't gone far down the slope when Sheree swam up. We went back to the white anglerfish and I took some more photographs.

We slowly headed up the slope under the jetty and at the top I told Sheree I wanted to look along the nets. I found the bannerfish again and then Sheree spotted a pair of White's Seahorses on the nets. We swam along the nets a little farther and I found two more single White's Seahorses.

We headed back to the main jetty and then swam under it towards the shore. We came out from under the jetty as it got shallower. Not long before we surfaced I spotted some Armina papilata nudibranchs half buried in the sand.

We got out at the beach.