Dive Details

Location

Date

Friday 23 February 2018

Time

11:14am - 12:07pm

Details

The conditions yesterday had not been all that good at The Leap but I still had an enjoyable dive. The forecast for today suggested it would be better but the waves at The Leap looked larger. In fact, the large waves turned Mike off and he went to dive The Monument instead.

It was a little too rough to get in from the low platform so I jumped in from the lowest point on the shelf. We swam out on the surface before descending. Roney wanted to show me the upside-down pipefish he'd found so I followed him and Dama. The visibility was barely 2 metres so it was difficult to follow. We swam for some time at around 330°. As it got deeper the visibility dropped. By the time we were at 19 metres the visibility was less than a metre. We agreed to go shallower as it was a bit clearer. I used my compass to head south and ascended the boulders until it was clear enough. We then swam along the side of the boulders.

We stayed at around 12 metres for some time until we hit sand. I believe this approximately corresponds with the area above and just past where "Nina", the female great seahorse, is. I headed a bit deeper to see if it had cleared up at all with the hope of finding Big Rock. I didn't get much deeper before the visibility dropped again so I came up to around 12 metres again. By now I had lost Roney and Dama.

I looked at each rock I swam past to see if I recognised it. It was not until I came on New Basket Star Rock that I knew where I was. I then headed down towards the sand line to look for the orange red-fingered anglerfish. I found the rock but not the anglerfish. It wasn't where it had been yesterday and I couldn't find it after a sweep around the rock.

I headed back up to New Basket Star Rock and went looking for the red pipefish but couldn't find their alga. I then pumped into Roney and Dama.

We swam together towards The Steps not really knowing where we were. I wanted to try to find Little Big Rock but the visibility was just too bad. After swimming for some time we gave up and ascended to 5 metres. We started our safety stop as we swam towards Split Rock. At first I wasn't sure where we'd come up but Roney thought we were still some way from Split Rock. We kept swimming and I eventually saw the Plesiastrea colonies and I was right from there. We finished our safety stops at Split Rock and then headed for the exit, I tried to stay underwater and swim into the gap but the undertow kept dragging me out and spinning me around. Eventually I gave up and swam along the surface which was hard work. Roney and Dama had gone ahead and Roney took my camera and then helped me get out.

This was my worst dive at The Leap.

Buddy

Dama, Roney

Seas

Surge

Visibility

.5 to 2 metres

Duration

51 minutes

Maximum depth

19.2 m

Average depth

10.7 m

Water temperature

19.6°C

Dive Profile from Citizen Hyper Aqualand

Tides at Botany Bay AEDT

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

High

2:26am

1.52m

Low

8:47am

0.57m

High

2:46pm

1.31m

Low

8:53pm

0.55m