Gove Town Wharf

Meet the site

The Gove Town Wharf in Melville Bay is the easy, convenient dive of the Gove area. The Marine Life Network describes it as a site for the photographer, with a maximum depth of about 16 m and pylons covered with flatworms, decorator crabs, nudibranchs, sea stars and feather stars, and notes that fish of quite large size and number hang around the pylons.

Like wharves everywhere in the tropics, the structure has become an artificial reef. The pylons are encrusted with sponges, ascidians, hydroids, soft corals and oysters, creating a vertical garden that hosts an enormous range of small invertebrates. Macro photographers can spend an entire dive on a few pylons searching for nudibranchs, shrimps, flatworms and crabs. The shade under the wharf deck attracts schools of snapper, trevally, batfish and baitfish, and larger residents such as cod and groper; the sandy and silty bottom holds rays and flathead.

Its main advantage is that it is shallow, sheltered in Melville Bay and close to town, so it can be dived when the trade wind makes offshore islands impractical. Visibility is lower than at the islands and drops after rain or when ships have stirred the bottom.

This is a working port, and access rules must be respected – dive only with permission and never near shipping. Within those limits it suits divers of all levels, including new divers and photographers, and it is one of the few Gove sites where a night dive is realistic. For visiting divers waiting out a windy spell, it is the most reliable way to get wet around Nhulunbuy.

What you might see

Nudibranchs, flatworms, decorator crabs, sea stars, feather stars, shrimps, snapper, trevally, batfish, cod, groper, rays, flathead, sponges, soft corals

Location

Wharf pylons in Gove Harbour (Melville Bay) at Nhulunbuy, a shallow and convenient site known for invertebrates and big fish under the wharf.

Facilities nearby

Gove Boat Club nearby (bar, meals, toilets, ramp); Nhulunbuy town services.