Blanket Bay, Cape Otway

Meet the site

Blanket Bay is a small, east-facing cove on the Bass Strait side of Cape Otway, known to most Victorians as one of the best bush campgrounds in the Otways rather than as a dive site. A tidal creek runs into the bay, forested slopes come down to the western end and a line of rocky reef closes the eastern side, so that inside the intertidal reef the water is often calm when the rest of the cape is a mess. In the 1880s a jetty here landed supplies for the Cape Otway lightstation, and its stumps still show at low tide near the eastern end of the beach. The diving is over the reef that protects the bay and along the rocky shore to the east: a jumble of submerged rocks, slabs and kelp-filled gutters in 3–10 m, carrying the dense brown algae, bull kelp and encrusting invertebrates that characterise the Great Southern Reef along this coast. Southern rock lobster and abalone are common enough that the bay is popular with spearfishers and cray divers, and schools of ocean-going fish – sweep, salmon, trevally and the occasional kingfish in summer – move through the deeper water off the point. Wrasse, magpie perch, zebrafish, leatherjackets and Port Jackson sharks are the reef regulars, and the intertidal rock pools on the platform are rich enough that Parks Victoria promotes them for snorkelling.

This is a good site for a camping trip on a settled summer week: the entry is a sand beach, the lagoon is shallow and forgiving for snorkellers, and the reef outside gives divers an hour of interesting, if not deep, exploration. The Scuba Doctor's warning still stands that weak or average swimmers should not dive here; once outside the reef you are on an exposed coast and conditions change quickly. It is the easiest introduction to the Cape Otway coves and the one to try first before committing to the more exposed Parker Inlet, Point Franklin and Crayfish Bay.

What you might see

Southern rock lobster, black-lip abalone, sea sweep, Australian salmon and trevally schools, blue-throat wrasse, magpie perch, zebrafish, leatherjackets, Port Jackson sharks, bull kelp, intertidal rock-pool life

Location

Small east-facing bay with a campground and old jetty remains on the eastern side of Cape Otway, protected by an intertidal reef, 30 km south-west of Apollo Bay.

Facilities nearby

Blanket Bay campground (bookings via Parks Victoria), pit toilets, no water or power, no shops; nearest supplies and fuel Apollo Bay (30 km); no air fills nearer than Warrnambool or Geelong.