Adelaide & South Australian Dive Sites

When most peo­ple think of scuba div­ing, pic­tures of the Great Bar­rier Reef, Bali and Van­u­atu spring to mind — a trop­i­cal par­adise teem­ing with coral and fish. What they don’t always realise is that there’s very likely a wealth of div­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties right in their own back yard. It’s not always going to be as colour­ful, or as warm, but it can still be quite an adven­ture nonethe­less. To that end, I’ve put together a list of some of the dive sites in Ade­laide and the sur­round­ing areas, along with a few of my pho­tos and video clips from each one. This list isn’t every dive site around, it’s just the sites that I’ve vis­ited so far. For­tu­nately, there’s plenty of them to keep me going so I won’t run out any time soon.

To get an idea of where the sites are, here’s a Google Maps rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the sites I’ve man­aged to pin down a loca­tion for (yel­low for sites I’ve vis­ited, blue for sites I haven’t vis­ited, and green for boat ramps):

Shore Dives

Port Noar­lunga

The reef at Port Noar­lunga is one of Adelaide’s most acces­si­ble dive spots. To make life a lit­tle eas­ier, be sure to bring a sack trol­ley to lug your gear out to the end of the jetty. It gets a bit busy dur­ing the warmer months, and you need to watch that the jetty jumpers don’t land on your head while you’re under the jetty.

The main part of the reef stretches for a few hun­dred metres either side of the jetty, with a few gaps in along the way to switch between the inner reef and the more exposed outer reef. Depths range from about 5m on the inner reef to 12m+ along the outer reef. At low tide the top of the reef is usu­ally exposed so you can sim­ply walk over and jump down to the outer reef. From there, its a nice easy dive north or south to a gap and back along the inner reef.

Aquatic life is abun­dant, with lots of leather­jack­ets, mor­wongs, old wives and the occa­sional stingray. You might also find some nudis, cut­tle­fish and octopus.

Port Noar­lunga is also great for night dives. Plenty of inter­est­ing crit­ters make their way out dur­ing the evening, and the area is gen­er­ally free of any hazards.

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Sec­ond Valley

Sec­ond Val­ley offers a good bit of vari­ety for a shore dive. There’s the jetty with lots of small fish and some inter­est­ing growth, the bluff with its thick sea­grass and shy crea­tures and the small caves around the cor­ner. Depend­ing on the dive you want to do, there’s a few dif­fer­ent entry points. Drop down from the jetty, have a look around then head over to the bluff. Walk past the jetty and enter from the cove. Or keep walk­ing and work your way over the slip­pery rocks and enter from the east­ern cove.

The bluff pro­vides a home to many small crit­ters, most inter­set­ing among them are the weedy sea drag­ons. They’re very hard to spot — it takes a really keen eye to find one. There’s also south­ern blue dev­ils, cut­tle­fish, (maybe) small cray­fish and some rather large eagle rays. It can be a bit bar­ren at times, its just one of those places where you take a chance. Vis­i­bil­ity can also be a bit hit and miss, espe­cially towards the tip of the bluff.

The cave sys­tem is fairly small but still inter­est­ing. Head east from the east­ern cove and fol­low the wall around.

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Rapid Bay

It’s often touted as one of the best local jetty dives around. The long T-shaped steel jetty can pro­vide a very nice, easy dive on a good day. The cur­rent can get pretty strong too, so that’s one thing to watch for.

Over the years, the jetty became has slowly decayed, and has been closed to fish­ers since 2004. A new jetty has been built along­side the old one and was opened in March 2009. Since it’s still new, there’s not that much life on the pylons yet, but in time it will hope­fully blos­som. There’s a great diver’s plat­form near the end of the jetty which makes get­ting in and out a very relaxed affair.

Once you’re in, you can fol­low a line which runs between the two jet­ties. Its a very pretty dive with lots of smaller fish, sponges and nudis all the way along the jetty, and huge schools of fish liv­ing under the T-section. Its also a good place to find both leafy and weedy sea dragons.

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Whyalla — The Fenceline

The Fence­line is a sea­sonal dive site, best vis­ited from late June to late Sep­tem­ber. The rea­son to visit this site is to wit­ness the Giant Aus­tralian Cut­tle­fish breed­ing sea­son. Dur­ing the breed­ing sea­son there’s not much in the water other than cut­tle­fish, but that’s not really a bad thing. The cut­tlies put on a great show, totally obliv­i­ous to any­thing other than their own kind. Take your woolies though — at this time of the year, Whyalla is cold, windy and very dusty. Still, if you don’t mind a bit of cold water, its well worth the journey.

The site itself is about 30 min­utes out from Whyalla, near Black’s Point. Turn right off Port Bonython road just before the San­tos plant, and head along to the car park. Its a short walk over the rocks and into the water. There’s no facil­i­ties nearby, so take some food & water.

You don’t need to go far out to see the cut­tle­fish — you’ll prob­a­bly see them as soon as you put your head under­wa­ter. The site is fairly flat, made up mostly of sea grass and rocks. It doesn’t get much deeper than about 3m, so snorkelling is also a pos­si­bil­ity. The only things to watch for are the occa­sional jel­ly­fish and the spiky sea urchins. Also, try to stay on the west­ern side of the fence­line (the other side is San­tos property).

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Edith­burgh

The jetty at Edith­burgh is one of the most colour­ful shore dives around. The pylons are incred­i­bly rich in life, cov­ered with sponges, fans and lit­tle crit­ters. The jetty itself is rea­son­ably short but wide, sup­ported by pylons in rows of 4. Don’t bother try­ing to count pylons as a mode of ori­en­ta­tion — it can get a bit confusing!

The water ranges from 3m to 12m+ and vis­i­bil­ity is usu­ally decent (6-8m). Entry points are steps on either side of the jetty, giant stride off the side, or for the more adven­tur­ous, a giant stride off the deep end.

There’s always plenty to see both under the jetty and off to the sides. There’s always lots of fish, blue swim­mer and dec­o­rated crabs, sea horses, eagle rays, con­ger eels and even an angler­fish or two. Nudi­branchs are also quite common.

A night dive at Edith­burgh is really quite spe­cial. You’ll very likely find the sea horses out and about, and if you’re really lucky, some pyjama squid. If you get the chance, its well worth it.

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Wool Bay

Wool Bay is renowned for its leafy sea drag­ons. The site itself is fairly indis­tinct, lots of veg­e­ta­tion, but very few stand­out fea­tures. You may find an occa­sional fish or crab, but that’s not really why you’d go there.

A shal­low jetty dive, Wool Bay doesn’t get much deeper than 3m. The chal­lenge in the dive is find­ing the weeds that aren’t really weeds — ie the fishy kind. The sea drag­ons blend in per­fectly with their envi­ron­ment and it is very tricky to actu­ally find one. They are usu­ally found towards the end of the jetty just off to the sides. Its quite a reward­ing expe­ri­ence unmask­ing one of nature’s great­est masquerader.

Port Vic­to­ria

Port Victoria’s jetty is yet another easy, pic­turesque dive. It’s hard to get much below 5m here, but it doesn’t really mat­ter. The pylons are com­pletely cov­ered in sponges and ferns and the fish life abounds. The jetty is quite long and L-shaped, with nice access points. There’s a short walk from the car park to the jetty and entry is via the ramp on the right hand side, or the steps at the L-section.

One of the ben­e­fits of the Yorke Penin­sula is that there’s always some­where to dive, no mat­ter what the con­di­tions. If Edith­burgh is blown out, try Port Vic­to­ria. The wind always favours one of these spots. On a good day it can be magical.

There isn’t much of inter­est off to the sides of the jetty — most of the fish and crit­ters stay under­neath. There’s cow­fish, sea horses, nudi­branchs and globe­fish every­where. In the right sea­son there’s also lots of crabs “get­ting busy”.

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Sten­house Bay

If you’re look­ing for some­thing a bit out of the way, and almost guar­an­teed to be deserted as far as divers go, try Sten­house Bay. In the heart of Innes National Park, it’s quite a drive to get there — and a long walk to the jetty. Entry to the water is via the metal lad­der at the shal­low end of the jetty — its a bit pre­car­i­ous though so it’s worth tak­ing a rope to lower the gear down (and to make get­ting back up a lot eas­ier too!).

Once you’re in though, you’re in for a treat. The jetty is cov­ered in bril­liantly coloured gor­gon­ian fans, ascid­i­ans and sponges. The fish are every­where and so are the lob­sters. We counted at least 6 in a small group of rocks off to the side of the jetty. If you’re lucky, you might even get buzzed by a seal.

Boat Dives

The Dredge

The wreck of the South Aus­tralian, a steam dredge, lies in about 20m of water. Its a very easy dive with lots of fish life. The dredge was scut­tled in 1985 and still retains most of its fea­tures. There are some great swim throughs, as well as a few entry point for wreck divers.

There are always schools of leather­jack­ets on the deck, bullseyes in the bridge and some stron­gies and other larger fish rest­ing under the stern. The hull is cov­ered in sponges and ferns and is home to lots of lit­tle fish.

The Dredge makes for a great night dive since it’s very open with min­i­mal haz­ards. For some rea­son, I don’t seem to have taken my cam­era along on any of the dives I’ve done there.

The Barge

Not the most excit­ing of dives, the Barge resem­bles a big rec­tan­gu­lar box. Its a pretty easy dive and one that comes up fairly often with the char­ter oper­a­tions, usu­ally in con­junc­tion with the Dredge, which is located about 80m south-east. The Barge was sunk in 1984 and is still intact. There’s not really much to say about it unfor­tu­nately — its one of those dives that you do when there’s noth­ing else on offer.

The Claris

There are two parts to the Claris, a 12m long boat and a wheel­house from another boat. The fish are abun­dant and its quite an inter­est­ing spot. It seems very pop­u­lar with the anglers too. The wrecks lie in 25m of water which means you don’t really have much time to try and find it if you hap­pen to anchor nowhere near the thing (as we found out on one rather unevent­ful “sand” dive!).

The gurnard perch cover the sandy bot­tom, so you really need to be care­ful when set­tling down on the sand since they are quite well cam­ou­flaged. There are bullseyes every­where in quite large schools, and plenty of mag­pie perch, moon­lighters and the occa­sional snap­per. We even man­aged to find a 2m wobbe­gong swim­ming around us.

ex-HMAS Hobart

The HMAS Hobart was scut­tled at the end of 2002 near Wir­rina, south of Ade­laide. The Hobart is a Charles F Adams class guided mis­sile destroyer, about 130m long and 14m wide. Its sit­ting about 4nm off shore in 30m of water. The site is sub­ject to very strong cur­rents, so its best to dive the site on a dodge tide when the cur­rent is much weaker. Because of its size, you’ll need quite a few dives to see everything.

Not too many fish call the wreck home, but really that’s not the pur­pose for vis­it­ing the Hobart. The ship is pretty well cleaned out but there are still some inter­est­ing spots to visit. The bridge is a pop­u­lar spot, as are the toi­lets for some rea­son. A fair bit of growth has gath­ered on the hull which is very colour­ful. One fish that can be found in abun­dance is the flat­head — they lit­er­ally line the sand, although because they blend in so well its hard to see them until you’re almost on top of them.

The dive boats tie off to one of the moor­ings points. The ship reaches to about 5m from the sur­face, so its quite a good trip going from the top of the antenna tower to the deck. Try descend­ing down one of the fun­nels for a tor­rent of stream­ing bubbles.

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Stan­vac Barges

Col­lec­tively known as the Stan­vac Barges, the ships at Port Stan­vac are actu­ally two barges and a dredge. Most of the time, the larger dredge is the focus of the dives. This one was known as the Saurian and its about 50m in length so there’s plenty to see. The ships are in about 28m of water, so bot­tom time is fairly lim­ited. The silt is also quite fine so it can get stirred up fairly eas­ily. Nonethe­less, its quite an enjoy­able dive: plenty of growth on the hull as the ships have been on the bot­tom since 1954.

Sea­cliff Reef

It took me a while to get out to Sea­cliff Reef, but it was well worth the wait. A very relax­ing dive, the reef stretches out in a cres­cent shape at about 12-15m. It doesn’t have that many dis­tin­guish­ing fea­tures so it’s a good idea to make a note of where you started so you know where to come back to. This fish­life here is incred­i­ble — you won’t see so many South­ern Blue Dev­ils in any other area — they’re every­where. There are plenty of hid­ing spots for fish and other crit­ters which makes for some great exploring.

Port Noar­lunga Tyre Reef

Its prob­a­bly not a dive you’d do on its own, since there’s a cou­ple of neat ships right next to it, but the tyre reef at Noar­lunga is still nice. The reef is made up of a bunch of tyre pyra­mids spread out over a wide area. The pyra­mids are hol­low and lots of lit­tle fish are found pok­ing their heads out for a look at the silly peo­ple in neoprene.

The reef is located right next to the Lumb so more than likely, you’ll visit the Lumb and take a look at the tyre reef, rather than the other way around. Even so, there are lots of neat fish, includ­ing some very large boarfish which call the reef home. The reef is in about 20m of water, mak­ing for a com­fort­able dive.

The Drop Off

A bit like the spot in Find­ing Nemo, the Drop Off is a flat ledge at 5m which drops off to 20m. This is a very pretty dive, but it’s a long boat ride from O’Sullivan’s Beach boat ramp (about an hour). One of the strik­ing fea­tures of the site is the abun­dance of gor­gon­ian fans. Rang­ing in shades from yel­low to red, they are really spec­tac­u­lar. The site is quite spread out but fairly easy to nav­i­gate around.

Aldinga Pin­na­cles

The Pin­na­cles at Aldinga are tall ver­ti­cal pil­lars of rock ris­ing up from the sand at 18m to about 5m from the sur­face. They make a great swim through and house a wide vari­ety of fish and crus­taceans. You’re almost guar­an­teed to find South­ern Blue Dev­ils here.

This site is quite close to the Drop Off, so its likely that you’d dive both on a trip out there (being an hour from the boat ramp, it makes sense to at least do two dives).

Norma

The Norma is a wreck with quite a bit of his­tory. It was used as a cargo ship dur­ing the early 1900’s and had a num­ber of mishaps and close encoun­ters. In 1907 it was acci­dently rammed by the Arden­craig and sank in 14m of water, about 5km out from Sem­a­phore. Because of the height of the masts, a cou­ple of ships actu­ally ran into the Norma, and one sank right on top. To put a stop to this, the Norma was exploded and thus leav­ing the wreck­age that is there today.

The site is quite spread out, and its hard to recog­nise much of the orig­i­nal ship. The bow is still par­tially intact and a cou­ple of masts are lay­ing off in dif­fer­ent directions.

There’s a lot of life around the site and there’s plenty to see. Mostly smaller fish, there is also a res­i­dent, and rather large, wobbe­gong that likes to sleep on the bow.

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Lumb

The Lumb was a steel tug in its for­mer life, before being sunk as an arti­fi­cial reef in 1994. The wreck sits near both the Sea Wolf and the Port Noar­lunga tyre reef, so if you’re not going to pen­e­trate the wrecks, its pretty easy to visit all three on the one dive. The hull of the Lumb is quite open but its usu­ally quite silty. The fine sand is also very easy to kick up.

Most of the ship is still intact, and it can be pen­e­trated quite eas­ily. You’ll find lots of smaller fish around the wreck, schools of leather­jack­ets and some big­ger mor­wongs under the stern.

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Sea Wolf

The Sea Wolf is a delib­er­ately sunk wreck off Port Noar­lunga. It lies on its star­board side in 20m of water along­side the Noar­lunga tyre reef. The wreck is set up for divers with access points throughout.

Sunk in 2002, there’s plenty of growth over the ship and a few fish to find around the place. Vis­i­bil­ity can be a bit lim­ited due to the fine silt. The Lumb sits about 15m away from the Sea Wolf — its usu­ally vis­i­ble from the Sea Wolf, but its best to run a line between them.

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Dive sites I haven’t vis­ited yet

As men­tioned at the top of the page, this list is just the sites that I’ve had the oppor­tu­nity to visit. There are plenty more sites avail­able to divers in South Aus­tralia. Here are some of them, in no par­tic­u­lar order (hope­fully I’ll get to visit them all at some stage!)