Quarantine Station Reef

Meet the site

Quarantine Station Reef lies off the Point Nepean Quarantine Station, which took in immigrant ships from the 1850s until about 1950 and whose long jetties, hospital wards and cemetery still stand on the shore of Ticonderoga Bay. For a century ships anchored off the station to land passengers, and the seabed here is a record of that: the Scuba Doctor listing counts six large anchors on the site and 'scattered artefacts including bottles, china plates, bowls, cups, clay jugs and black powder gun shells', with intact plates from the White Star Line, P&O and other companies among the finds. All of it is protected and must be left in place.

The reef itself is a ridge with its top at about 12 m running east–west parallel to the current, and a southern drop-off to 20–22 m, carrying soft corals and sponges on the ledges; the listing is honest that much of the surrounding bottom is sand with 'limited reef area', and that the ridge is the attraction. On the sand are spider crabs – in vast aggregations in late autumn and winter – and stingrays, and dolphins and seals pass through the bay regularly.

The site is normally run as a drift rather than a slack-water dive – 'the best time is when the water is moving' – with the group on a float line and the boat following along the ridge; it is one of the standard drift-diving instruction sites for the Portsea operators, being five minutes from the pier and sheltered from most weather. Cattle Jetty Drift and Artefacts Flood, both nearby, cover the same historic seabed toward the old cattle jetty and further into the bay.

What you might see

Soft corals, sponges, spider crabs (winter aggregations), smooth stingray, southern fiddler ray, leatherjackets, wrasse, bullseyes under ledges, dolphins and fur seals passing

Location

Reef 200–300 m offshore from the old Quarantine Station in Ticonderoga Bay on the bay side of Point Nepean, 2 km west of Portsea; 380 m south-east of Cattle Jetty Drift.