Meet the site
Newhaven Jetty is the working fishing pier on the Phillip Island side of The Narrows, the 300 m wide gap that separates the island from San Remo. Everything about the dive is dictated by the tide: the whole of Western Port's eastern arm drains and fills through this channel, and Scuba Doctor records streams of up to six knots swirling through the pylons. At slack water, however, the same flow has produced a jetty dive of surprising richness for such a shallow, unassuming structure. The pier runs out from a small beach beside the boat ramp, with the inner pylons largely dry at low tide and the outer pylons standing in a dredged channel of about 10 m that the commercial boats use. Growth on the submerged sections is described as reasonable rather than spectacular: encrusting sponges, ascidians, tubeworms and hydroids, with the same pylon-dwelling fauna divers know from the Mornington Peninsula piers – seahorses, decorator crabs, leatherjackets, cowfish, and pipefish in the weed and rubble at the base. Rays and flathead lie on the sand between pylons and schools of yellow-eye mullet and salmon move through the channel edge. The bottom is a mix of coarse sand, shell and old jetty debris that turns up bottles and lost fishing gear. Newhaven is generally regarded as the poorer relation of San Remo Jetty, 300 m across the water, because the visibility is usually lower and the channel edge is more exposed to the main stream. Its value is that it gives a second option on the same slack, and it sits next to the island's main boat ramp so it is a convenient warm-up or afternoon dive for boat divers coming back in from Cape Woolamai. This is a dive for experienced divers who already understand tidal timing; there is no margin for a late entry, and a diver caught in the ebb will be carried south under the bridge and out towards the entrance bar.
What you might see
Big-belly seahorses, decorator crabs, leatherjackets, cowfish, pipefish, encrusting sponges and ascidians, nudibranchs, rays, flathead, mullet, Australian salmon
Location
Commercial fishing jetty at the end of Beach Crescent, Newhaven, on the Phillip Island side of The Narrows immediately north of the San Remo bridge.
Facilities nearby
Car park and public toilets at the Newhaven boat ramp; cafes and general store in Newhaven and across the bridge in San Remo; No air fills on Phillip Island; nearest fills on the Mornington Peninsula (Rye/Portsea) or in Melbourne's south-east
Before you make plans
Conditions, access and operator schedules can change. This is a location guide, not a dive plan. Ask a local operator about current conditions and suitability for your training and experience.
Sources & further reading
scubadoctor.com.auscubadoctor.com.auRecord updated 26 Sept 2026. Source claims are being reviewed.