New South Wales
Diving in Sydney Northern Beaches
From Manly to Palm Beach the Northern Beaches are a string of headlands with reefs on their protected sides and open-ocean sites offshore. Shelly Beach at Manly is the classic Sydney shore dive, an aquatic reserve with blue gropers and dusky whalers in summer; Long Reef and the Apartments off Dee Why are boat dives with grey nurse sharks and a resident wobbegong population. The wreck of the Valiant off Palm Beach and the SS Tuggerah off Long Reef suit deeper divers.
Dive sites in this region
WallSydney Northern Beaches
Bluefish Point
A sponge-covered vertical wall from 5 to 22 m with cuttlefish, sea dragons, kingfish and seasonal grey nurse sharks, 15 minutes…
ReefSydney Northern Beaches
Bluefish Valley
A year-round grey nurse shark colony in a sheltered 7 m valley that Open Water divers can do – Manly's answer to Magic Point.
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
Coolooli wreck
A towering bucket dredge on its side in 48 m with the bucket ladder still running to the bow; jewel anemones on every rope.
ReefSydney Northern Beaches
Dee Why Wide (Advanced)
Sponge-covered walls, long gullies and blue devilfish on a clear-water offshore reef, with an abandoned ship's anchor in a crack.
Shore/Rock PlatformSydney Northern Beaches
Fairy Bower
The dusky whaler side of Cabbage Tree Bay – a quiet, shallow wall-and-kelp reef along the Manly promenade that comes alive at…
Shore/Rock PlatformSydney Northern Beaches
Freshwater (Harbord)
Sea dragons, sharks and an outer reef with 3.5 m walls off an ocean rock platform – the Northern Beaches' best and most demanding…
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
HMAS Doomba / Meggol wreck
A WWI Royal Navy minesweeper that became a Brisbane ferry, an RAN warship and a Sydney oil barge, lying beside the Dee Why ferry…
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
Himma wreck
Compact WWII Empire tug at 50 m with an intact propeller and a boiler room you can look into through the hull; the deepest of the…
WallSydney Northern Beaches
Long Reef Wall
The Cathedral – a peaked sandstone tunnel packed with pomfret – and Andy's Cave on a sponge-covered wall 35 minutes from Manly.
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
M24 Japanese midget submarine (protected zone – no diving)
The midget submarine that torpedoed HMAS Kuttabul in 1942, found by recreational divers in 2006 off Bungan Head at 55 m – a…
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
MV Bellubera wreck
A 1910 Manly ferry in two pieces with an intact bow and open, fish-filled interior at 45 m.
ReefSydney Northern Beaches
Old Man's Hat (North Head)
Sydney's finest sea-fan and sponge gardens with swim-throughs and canyons under North Head's hat-shaped rock, diveable when…
ReefSydney Northern Beaches
Old Man's Shoulder (North Head)
House-sized boulders with overhangs and swim-throughs rising from 27 m, patrolled by two-metre bull rays and sea dragons, 200 m…
ReefSydney Northern Beaches
Red Indian Point
Sydney's most reliable red indianfish reef, with gullies, walls and swim-throughs in 12–23 m on the calmest corner of North Head.
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
SS Birchgrove Park wreck
The most intact wreck off Sydney – a 1930 collier lost in a 1956 southerly buster, with enterable bridge and forecastle in 51 m.
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
SS Dee Why (ferry) wreck
Sydney's largest scuttled ferry, upright in 48 m with four intact boilers and a swim-through boiler room; the flagship of the…
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
SS Duckenfield wreck
Engine, boilers, anchors and copper ingots of an 1889 collier salvaged with explosives, spread across the reef edge at 21–23 m.
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
SS Myola wreck
A 1919 collier with two big boilers, an upright stern and a shattered propeller, in the clearest water of any Sydney wreck.
Shore/Rock PlatformSydney Northern Beaches
Shelly Beach / Cabbage Tree Bay (Manly)
NSW's most popular shore dive – a no-take reserve where tame blue groper, wobbegongs, PJ sharks and summer dusky whalers crowd a…
ReefSydney Northern Beaches
The Apartments (Long Reef)
Grey nurse sharks cruising a sandstone gutter 35 minutes from Manly, with the Cathedral tunnel and stacked 'apartment' blocks…
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
The Valiant wreck
An intact 22 m tug upright on white sand in 27 m under the Barrenjoey lighthouse – the best small wreck dive north of Sydney…
ReefSydney Northern Beaches
Adamson Sponge Gardens
The densest sponge gardens on North Head, on the reef where the clipper Catherine Adamson was lost in 1857.
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
Apollo Barge wreck
A fully intact 60 m hopper barge at 47 m with an enterable engine room and holds full of jewfish and trumpeter.
WallSydney Northern Beaches
Dee Why Wide (Deep)
A true wall from 30 to 36 m with the richest sponge and gorgonian growth on the Northern Beaches and big pelagics on the edge.