Meet the site
The Lighthouse Landing is the rock platform and cove on the eastern side of the South East Point peninsula where, for more than a century, supplies for the Wilsons Promontory Lighthouse were winched ashore from the lighthouse tender, and where the keepers' families arrived and left. Scuba Doctor lists it as a 5–30 m reef dive for Advanced divers, 750 m north of South East Point, facing north-east, and describes granite walls extending underwater with boulders up to 10 m high, clouds of butterfly and barber perch, and fragments of lighthouse supplies that were lost overboard during a hundred years of landings. It is the gentler of the two lighthouse dives and the anchorage from which the point is attempted. The walls are the same granite as the point but stepped rather than sheer, broken by giant boulders that create overhangs and short swim-throughs, and floored with sand at 15–30 m where the debris of the landing lies – iron fittings, broken crockery, bottles and the odd unidentifiable lump of machinery, all protected as heritage and to be left where found. The perch schools are the visual highlight, hanging in dense clouds off the walls in the clear water, with boarfish, morwong, wrasse and leatherjackets on the rock, blue devils and bullseyes in the shade, and sponge, zoanthid and ascidian cover wherever the kelp thins. Fur seals rest on the landing rocks. The site is reached after a long run from Port Welshpool down the eastern Prom coast or from Tidal River around South Point, and is dived only by expedition-minded club and private boats on calm days; its shelter from westerly winds makes it the natural lunch stop and second dive of a South East Point trip. The lighthouse above, the second-oldest in Victoria still operating, and the keepers' cottages now used for walker accommodation, give the dive a historical setting that no other Prom site has.
What you might see
Butterfly and barber perch in clouds, boarfish, morwong, wrasse, leatherjackets, blue devils, bullseyes, sponges and zoanthids, Australian fur seals
Location
The historic supply landing for the 1859 lighthouse, 750 m north of South East Point on the eastern side of the peninsula, facing north-east into Bass Strait.
Facilities nearby
Departure from Tidal River beach ramp, Port Welshpool or Sandy Point; No air fills at Tidal River or Port Welshpool; the nearest compressor is roughly 100 km away (Melbourne's south-east or Inverloch/Leongatha area by arrangement) – bring all cylinders or a portable compressor
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.auscubadoctor.com.auRecord updated 26 Sept 2026. Source claims are being reviewed.