Outer Corsair Wall

Meet the site

Outer Corsair Wall is the seaward continuation of the Nepean-side cliff, the last named section before the wall runs out into the open floor of Bass Strait. The Scuba Doctor listing describes it in the same terms as Inner Corsair – 'a very spectacular wall dive with lots of ledges, caves and drop-offs' – with the top at 10 m and the base at over 65 m, and it notes that it is a good crayfish wall. It lies only 32 m from the Rip Bank mark and the two are, in practical terms, one long face; a charter that calls a dive 'Rip Bank' may well put divers on this section.

The wall is the most exposed of the Nepean group. The shallow top is kelp and broken rock, and below the lip the face drops in long vertical sections with big overhangs and caves at intervals; the encrusting life is dense and the fish are those of the open coast as much as the bay – schools of sweep, boarfish, blue devils in the caves, sevengill sharks off the wall, and seals overhead. Visibility here is often the best at the Heads because the water is straight from Bass Strait.

That exposure is also the limit. The listing states that it 'can only be dived on slack water as it is only just out of The Heads', and in practice it is dived on the end of the flood in calm seas so that the returning ebb – which sets straight out to sea – is not running while divers are still in the water. It remains technically inside the shipping channel. This is a site for experienced Heads divers with a skipper who knows the entrance; technical divers value the 65 m base. Recreational Advanced divers can dive the top third on a short, disciplined profile when conditions allow, but it is not a regular charter drop.

What you might see

Southern rock lobster, southern blue devil, sponges, soft corals, zoanthids, silver sweep, longsnout boarfish, sharpnose sevengill shark, Australian fur seal

Location

Outermost wall on the Nepean side of the entrance, 32 m south of the Rip Bank mark and about 250 m south-west of Nepean Wall, facing Bass Strait.