Kelp Beds Reef

Meet the site

Kelp Beds Reef takes its name from the Admiralty charts, which for a century marked this part of Lonsdale Bight for the forest of giant kelp that rose from 15 m to the surface and warned ships off the shoal. The Scuba Doctor listing records that the forest kelp has largely gone – 'due to uncertain causes (water temperature, urchins, boat traffic)' – but that the reef retains thicker kelp species covering its rock formations and bommies, and that it is notable for 'sponge gardens with appeal to photographers, fish spotters and crayfish hunters'. Depth is 8–23 m; the separate drift listing gives 10–21 m on the flood.

The ground is a field of low bommies and ledges standing on sand and rubble, each capped with Ecklonia and other kelps and undercut at the base, with the sponge gardens of the bight filling the flats between – orange, yellow and purple sponges, ascidians and bryozoans in a continuous carpet. The decline of the giant kelp is part of a wider Victorian story, and the site is one of the places where its loss is most visible; but the community that replaced it is rich, with crayfish under every bommie, nudibranchs and sea stars on the sponges, blue devils in the undercuts and the fish of the bight – boarfish, magpie perch, leatherjackets, old wives, wrasse – over the top. Zoo Reef, 31 m away, is named for its fish density.

The listing's warning that 'the currents can run fast and strong, providing fresh nutrients' is the operational note: the site is dived either at slack from a shot or as a group drift on the flood under a float, never on a running tide without one. It is a regular on the Queenscliff schedules as a second dive and a photographer's site, and it pairs with Boarfish Reef and 12lb Reef, which lie within 150 m.

What you might see

Kelp (Ecklonia and others), sponge gardens, ascidians, bryozoans, southern rock lobster, southern blue devil, nudibranchs, sea stars, longsnout boarfish, magpie perch, leatherjackets, old wife, bluethroat wrasse

Location

Reef and bommies in Lonsdale Bight midway between Point Lonsdale and Queenscliff, 31 m north of Zoo Reef and 150 m east of Boarfish Reef, marked on old Admiralty charts as kelp beds.