Sea Dragon Sanctuary

This is one of the worlds largest populations of these animals, in 4 dives we found 14 Weedy Sea Dragons! These results hopefully display the sheer number Sea Dragons at Kurnell.

The Marine Survey – How it we conducted it:
Theres no trickery in the video (other than a cool transition or two!). Over the period of 6 weeks we undertook 4 dives at Kurnell from The Monument dive site. Each scuba dive was done on a seperate day as we wanted to average our results out over a longer period of time.

Note, we were not using search patterns or other marine biology survey techniques – this was purely done from the view point of an ‘ordinary diver’ – we swam along the kelp line until we saw a Weedy Sea Dragon.

It’s also great to see that we encountered a few baby, juvenile and hunting sea dragons! A few things i’ve never seen before.

We were finding up to 6 Sea Dragons in a single dive on certain days! and I imagine for every Sea Dragon we actually found in the kelp forests, we probably swam straight past 5 others. (They’re truely the masters of camouflage – as they blend in with the kelp and are often mistaken for sea weed!

This film was commissioned by the Sutherland Shire Council, and shot in Kurnell, Sydney, Australia.

The music was written and composed exclusively for this film by Tom Wanless https://tomwanless.com/

If you’re interested in more content check out my underwater photography instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomsunderwaterphotography/

For contact information see my website: https://www.tomparkphotography.com/

Gear used:
– Sony A7III
– Sony 16-35mm f4
– Sony 50mm f1.8
– DJI Mavic Air
– Rode Video Mic Pro
– Zhiyun Crane

Underwater:
– Sony A7III – 16-35mm lens
– Seau0026Sea housing and dome port
– OrcaTorch D910V and D950V video lights