North Wall

Meet the site

North Wall is the deep wall on Spectacular Reef, the limestone ridge that runs along the southern edge of the Queenscliff bank inside the Heads. The Scuba Doctor listing, with GPS from the Power House Underwater Club, places it between Captain Nitro Drop Off and Spec Reef, gives the top of the wall at about 19 m and says the face 'drops over 60 metres'. It describes 'large overhangs, small caves, swim-throughs and lots of crevices to explore' and southern rock lobster on the top of the wall.

This is the same drowned-valley geology as Lonsdale Wall but on the northern, Queenscliff side of the channel, facing south into the deep water of the entrance. Because it is a little further inside the bay than the Lonsdale sites it is more sheltered from swell and the listing rates it as diveable in most weather, with the qualification that big seas outside cut visibility to a couple of metres for a day or two. The encrusting life is the full Heads assemblage – sponges, zoanthids, soft corals, gorgonians in the deeper overhangs – and blue devils, boarfish, old wives and morwong hold the caves, with sevengill sharks in the deeper water and dolphins and seals passing in mid-water.

The complication is position: North Wall lies directly in the shipping channel, so it cannot be anchored, and a shipping report from Lonsdale VTS is a condition of the dive. With the top at 19 m there is no shallow ground, and the 60 m base makes it a regular technical destination; recreational Advanced divers dive the upper terraces on a short slack-water profile. It is a club and technical-charter site more than a daily drop, and together with Captain Nitro Drop Off and The Far Side it forms the deep-wall trio on the Queenscliff side. Note that 'North Wall' here is distinct from North Wall Corner on Lonsdale Wall.

What you might see

Southern rock lobster, southern blue devil, longsnout boarfish, old wife, dusky morwong, sponges, zoanthids, soft corals, gorgonians, sharpnose sevengill shark, dolphins and fur seals in mid-water

Location

On Spectacular Reef inside Port Phillip about 2.2 km south-east of Queenscliff and 1 km off Shortland Bluff, between Captain Nitro Drop Off (102 m west) and Spec Reef; the wall is in the shipping channel.