In New South Wales we get common (or weedy) sea dragons. They are generally found south of the Central Coast but we do not have leafy sea dragons. In February 2003 I also dived the leafys at Rapid Bay Jetty.

Located approximately 100 kilometres south of Adelaide, Second Valley is a small "locality" consisting of some houses and a caravan park. The nearest town is Normanville. This small town is about 75 km south of Adelaide In 2022 I stayed at Second Valley in an AirBNB place. See Normanville page for more information. From Adelaide, take the Main South Road and pass through Normanville and past Wirrina Cove Resort. It is about 16 km south of Normanville.

A satellite photograph of the dive site at Second Valley. You start at the jetty and go across to the point and then around it and to the south-west and south

Assuming you are staying at Second Valley, when you want to dive drive down to the remains of the old jetty (the same road you came in on). Park in the carpark as close to the wharf as you can. Once geared up. walk out to the start of the wharf and enter the water from the jetty stairs.

There are two dives you can do here. One is out north from the jetty to the other side of the small point ahead of you and back. The second is to the east of the jetty and under it. We did two dives totalling two hours using a single 12 litre tank.

A photograph of the dive site at Second Valley looking from the point back to the jetty	An old photo of the Second Valley Jetty, much bigger then

First dive we went in at the stairs on the jetty. Once in, we surface swam most of the way to the point. Then we went down and swam to the point and then around point and to SW and S. The reef bottom is mostly sand with some weed and kelp. There are also some rocky bits. We did not see any leafy sea dragons here (we were advised to look there by the Second Valley Dive owner).

One of the leafy sea dragons we saw	Another photo of the same leafy at left

We did see some swimming anemones, seapike and leatherjackets. I also saw a large metre long fish I have never seen before. We returned back we headed into the bay to the west and north-west of the jetty. Here we found two leafy sea dragons in weed to just out from the end of the jetty! Fantastic!

We returned to the jetty area and I think we exited onto the rocks. The maximum depth of this dive was almost 10 metres and we did a little over an hour underwater.

After a surface interval, we re-entered at the stairs again using the same tank as the first dive. This time we went east-north-east and then in a grid pattern back past jetty and back again and did again. My buddy and I lost outr two other buddies early on, they ended up seeing a larger leafy sea dragon right near the stairs! We did not see it or any other ones. There was not a great deal seen. Maximum depth was about 5 metres.

The second leafy sea dragon I saw in 2022	A short-tailed ceratosoma (Ceratosoma brevicaudatum) at Rapid Bay Jetty in 2022

In April the water temperature was between 18.9C and 19.5C. The visibility fair, say 7-8 metres. Well worth doing to be able to say you saw the leafy sea dragons. You should also dive Rapid Bay Jetty as well while here.