Point Danger Marine Sanctuary (Torquay)

Meet the site

Point Danger is the small, rocky headland that closes the southern end of Torquay's Front Beach and gives Cosy Corner its shelter. The sanctuary covers about 20 hectares of intertidal rock platform, subtidal sandstone reef and sand, and because it is only a hundred metres from a car park on the edge of a beach town it is the Surf Coast's local shore dive and snorkel. The reef runs out as a series of low ridges and sand-floored gutters, a metre or two deep on the platform edge and dropping to 6–8 m a couple of hundred metres off the point. The ridges carry a dense turf of brown algae with patches of common kelp and bull kelp on the surge-swept outer edge; the ledges beneath them shelter southern rock lobster, black-lip abalone, sea urchins and a rich cover of encrusting sponges and ascidians. Fish life is typical of the exposed Victorian coast: blue-throat and senator wrasse, sea sweep, zebrafish, magpie perch, herring cale, leatherjackets and, on the sand edges, weedy seadragons and smooth rays. Port Jackson sharks turn up in the gutters in winter and spring.

The site also holds the scattered remains of the American clipper Joseph H Scammell, which struck the reef here in May 1891 and is recorded separately. For most visitors the sanctuary is a relaxed, shallow dive of an hour or so, ideal for new divers, snorkellers and anyone with a camera and a macro lens. The catch is the swell: the same exposure that makes the point a surf break means it is only genuinely comfortable on the flat, northerly days that Torquay gets in late summer and autumn. On those days it is one of the easiest and most rewarding shore entries between Barwon Heads and Apollo Bay, and being a no-take sanctuary since 2002 the crayfish and abalone are noticeably larger and bolder than on adjacent reef.

What you might see

Weedy seadragons, southern rock lobster, black-lip abalone, blue-throat wrasse, sea sweep, zebrafish, magpie perch, leatherjackets, Port Jackson sharks (winter), smooth rays, sponges and ascidians under ledges

Location

Rocky headland and 20 ha sanctuary reef between Torquay Front Beach and Cosy Corner, at the southern end of the Torquay foreshore.

Facilities nearby

Car parks at Point Danger and Cosy Corner, toilets and outdoor showers at the Front Beach/Cosy Corner, cafes along the Esplanade; air fills in Geelong or Queenscliff.