Nepean Reef (Time and Campbell wrecks)

Meet the site

Nepean Reef is the rock at the very tip of Point Nepean, the eastern jaw of The Rip, and it carries two twentieth-century wrecks that the Scuba Doctor guide lists together under the reef and separately by name. The Parks Victoria divers' guide places the SS Time 'midway along the northern side', dominated by 'two huge boilers lying in the middle of the shipwreck remains', and the Campbell 'at the extreme western end, under and just to the north of Campbell Rock'.

The Time was a steel cargo steamer of 3,322 tons, 104 m long, built at Sunderland in 1913. Inbound from Sydney under Captain William McClenaghan with 41 crew, she strayed into the red sector of the Lonsdale light and at 3.10 am on 26 August 1949 drifted onto Nepean Reef. The Queenscliff lifeboat took off her whole crew by that evening. She stood on the reef as a landmark for more than ten years before being blasted – partly, the listing notes, for a film – and her wreckage is now scattered over a wide area, the two boilers the only substantial pieces. The Campbell was a 135-ton Norwegian-built steel whale-catcher of 1911; her steering failed on a passage from Sydney to Melbourne and on 13 June 1914 she struck Corsair Rock at 8 knots and was carried onto the reef. All her crew survived in large seas; the only casualty was the captain's terrier.

Both wrecks lie in 1–9 m on a reef that the ebb pours over at several knots and that breaks in any swell. The guide's advice is to dive from a boat at the last of the ebb and early flood so that the pick-up is inside the Heads rather than out to sea, and only in extremely calm conditions. Kelp and coralline algae cover the plates and boilers, crayfish and abalone live in the wreckage, and sweep, wrasse and seals work the reef. It is a site for experienced divers with a knowledgeable skipper, dived rarely and of interest mainly for its history; both are protected historic shipwrecks.

What you might see

Kelp, coralline algae, southern rock lobster, abalone, silver sweep, bluethroat wrasse, zebrafish, Australian fur seal

Location

Reef at the tip of Point Nepean just outside Port Phillip, holding the wrecks of the steamer Time (midway along the northern side, two boilers) and the whaler Campbell (at the western end under Campbell Rock); 82 m from Trimix Corner. GPS marks are known to be inaccurate.