Exmouth Navy Pier

Meet the site

The Navy Pier is the dive that put Exmouth on the international map and is routinely described as one of the best pier dives in the world. Built in the 1960s to service the Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station, the 300 m T-shaped structure sits in a fully operational Defence area that was closed to the public for decades. That long exclusion, combined with strong tidal flows carrying nutrients from Exmouth Gulf, turned the forest of pylons into a dense artificial reef that operators call an oasis in the desert.

The dive is shallow — the sand beneath the T-head lies at roughly 10–15 m — and the attraction is the density of life rather than the topography. Every pylon is coated in sponges, soft corals and ascidians, and the rows of columns channel fish into huge schools of snapper, sweetlips and trevally. More than 200 fish species have been recorded. Large resident Queensland groper (one nicknamed the BFG) cruise the pylons, whitetip reef sharks and tasselled wobbegongs rest on the bottom, and in winter grey nurse sharks gather under the structure. Between the pylons, patient divers find frogfish, scorpionfish, flatworms, nudibranchs, octopus, cuttlefish and sea snakes. Visibility is modest, usually 3–10 m, and the light is dim under the deck, so it rewards photographers with strobes and divers comfortable in a busy, three-dimensional site.

Access is controlled. Only the licensed operator can take divers onto the pier, identities are checked at the gate, and a Defence surcharge covers licensing and security. Dives are run strictly at slack tide, so the schedule shifts daily. Importantly for travel planning, Dive Ningaloo's published status for 2025–26 is that the pier is closed for extensive maintenance while the operator awaits updates from the Department of Defence; confirm it has reopened before building a trip around it.

When it is open, the pier suits Open Water divers with some experience who are comfortable with low visibility and following a guide closely. It is often combined with Lighthouse Bay and Muiron Islands boat dives in the same week.

What you might see

Giant Queensland groper, grey nurse sharks (winter), whitetip reef sharks, tasselled and spotted wobbegongs, schooling snapper, sweetlips and trevally, barracuda, mangrove jacks, lionfish, frogfish, scorpionfish, moray eels, octopus, cuttlefish, sea snakes, shovelnose rays, turtles, nudibranchs, flatworms, soft corals and sponges

Location

300 m T-shaped Defence pier at Point Murat on the eastern tip of North West Cape, about 14 km north of Exmouth, inside the restricted area of the Harold E. Holt Naval Communication Station.

Facilities nearby

No public facilities on site (restricted area); gear-up on the pier deck. Air fills, hire, toilets and cafes in Exmouth town, 15 minutes south.