AUSTRALIA BELOW THE SURFACE
Every wreck has a story.
Historic ships, former naval vessels and scattered remains. Explore Australia’s wreck-diving places—and learn how to read the story behind the steel.
AI illustration of a fictional wreck. Not a photograph, site plan or equipment demonstration.
HISTORY. HABITAT. EXPLORATION.
Find the wreck.
Understand the dive.
A wreck’s name and depth are only the beginning. Its history, condition, access rules and the route you intend to dive all matter. Use this section to discover places, compare records and ask better questions of local operators.
Our directory includes wreck remains and reef sites associated with wrecks. Inclusion does not mean a site is currently open, regularly visited or suitable for every diver.
10 CHAPTERS • ORIGINAL EXPLANATIONS
Start with the learning guide
Understand the wreck you are looking at
Distinguish a vessel’s history from the kind of dive it offers.
Read depth, access and location correctly
Turn a directory entry into questions that can be verified.
Choose a first wreck for the experience you have
Compare the proposed trip, not a list of famous names.
Know the boundary between outside and inside
Recognise when the environment changes the training question.
Account for conditions and a changing structure
Read current notices before relying on old descriptions.
Connect training and equipment to the intended dive
Ask what a course teaches before choosing equipment or a certification.
Treat wrecks as heritage, not souvenirs
Find the applicable site rules and leave the evidence in place.
Photograph the wreck without changing the dive
Build a visual story from the route you have already agreed.
Build a booking that can survive a change of plan
Resolve practical questions before committing travel time and money.
Turn the dive into a better understanding of the wreck
Record observations that can improve your next visit and the directory.
A FEW STARTING POINTS
Wrecks to research
Explore these records for history, maps and local context. Recorded depths and operator links need confirmation for your actual trip; this is not a ranking or a list of guaranteed departures.
WreckSunshine Coast
Ex-HMAS Brisbane
Queensland's great destroyer wreck – 133 m, upright, funnels 3 m below the surface and 1000+ species – now with a…
WreckFleurieu Peninsula & Victor Harbor
Ex-HMAS Hobart
A 133 m guided missile destroyer sitting upright in 30 m with the superstructure from 5 m, and the only prepared naval wreck in…
WreckGeographe Bay & Busselton
HMAS Swan Wreck
A 113 m warship upright in 31 m with the crow's nest at 8 m and cut-outs for safe penetration - Australia's first purpose-sunk…
WreckTownsville & Magnetic Island
SS Yongala
A 109 m passenger steamer lost with all 122 aboard in the 1911 cyclone, lying almost intact on its side and swarmed by giant…
Artificial ReefPort Phillip Heads
ex-HMAS Canberra
A 138 m guided-missile frigate scuttled in 2009 and sitting almost upright in 28–32 m with the bridge at 8 m – bridge, galley,…
WreckHervey Bay & K'gari
ex-HMAS Tobruk
Australia's largest military dive wreck – a 127 m landing ship lying on her side, with the shallowest point at 11 m for Open…
BROWSE BY STATE & NAME
Explore the wreck directory
112 wreck-related recordsRecorded information, not live availability
Shore/Rock PlatformShipwreck Coast & Warrnambool
Port Campbell Bay
The Shipwreck Coast's only reliably sheltered shore dive – a kelp-covered reef wall from the town beach to the bay mouth, with…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Portsea Hole Wreck
A 13 m fishing boat scuttled in the early 1980s at 26 m beside Portsea Hole, now a sponge-covered fish shelter and the natural…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Quarantine Station Anchor
A large concreted Admiralty-pattern anchor from the quarantine-station era standing alone on the sand at 11 m off Point Nepean –…
Details need confirmationWreckPort Phillip Heads
RMS Australia
The boilers, shafts and plating of a 142 m P&O mail steamer that struck Corsair Rock in 1904, strewn over 300 m of reef in 3–8 m…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
SS Alert
An upright, largely intact 1877 iron steamer in 75 m, lost with 15 lives in 1893 and found by Southern Ocean Exploration in 2007;…
WreckPortland & the West
SS Barwon & Horseshoe Reef, Cape Bridgewater
Boiler and plating of an 1871 coastal steamer lost in fog, beside a kelp-covered snorkel reef in the calmest water on Cape…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
SS Buninyong
Second-largest wreck in the Graveyard – intact bridge with an exhaust stack across it and three boilers in 50–54 m; a trimix…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
SS Cheviot
Scattered iron of the coastal steamer whose 1887 wreck killed 34 people – the deadliest loss at the Heads – in 1–7 m of…
WreckMelbourne & Port Phillip Bay
SS City of Launceston
An 1863 Bass Strait steamer sunk in an 1865 collision and lying complete from keel to deck in 21 m of silt with the other ship's…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
SS Coogee
Photogenic stern with steering quadrant under two decks, twin boilers you can swim between, and a bow on its side with railings…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
SS Courier
Planked foredeck 7 m proud of the sand and the most colourful sponge growth in the Graveyard; two boilers in line with crayfish…
WreckWilsons Promontory
SS Federal
A collier lost with all hands in a 1901 gale and found by CSIRO sonar in 2019, lying broken in 115 m off Cape Conran – a…
WreckWilsons Promontory
SS Gulf of Carpentaria
An unsalvaged 1881 cargo liner lying collapsed at the foot of the uncharted pinnacle that sank her in 1885, in 48–50 m of…
WreckMelbourne & Port Phillip Bay
SS Kakariki
Salvaged remains of a 1926 steamer lost in the port of Melbourne's worst collision (1937, five dead), dumped off Williamstown in…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
SS Malaita
A 1893 island trader with a chequered life, lying at 65 m – one of the deep Graveyard set dived only by trimix and rebreather…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
SS Milora
The largest wreck in the Graveyard – a 101 m collier standing 10–12 m off the sand with intact bow, standing cabin structure and…
WreckSurf Coast & Great Ocean Road
SS Orungal
A 119 m interstate liner wrecked on Formby Reef in 1940 and picked over by Whelan the Wrecker – two Scotch boilers awash at low…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
SS Rotomahana
The first steel-hulled ocean steamer in the world; separated clipper bow with anchors and bowsprit, and a wall of condensers and…
WreckMelbourne & Port Phillip Bay
SS Uralba
The last wooden coal-burner built in Australia and a WWII boom-defence vessel, upright in 18 m off Carrum with foremast, water…
Shore/Rock PlatformMelbourne & Port Phillip Bay
Sandringham Pier Breakwater
Breakwater built partly from old ship hulks, with the J7 submarine wreck 150 m away; sheltered, fishy and good at night.
WreckShipwreck Coast & Warrnambool
Schomberg
Railway girders, iron tanks and cemented fittings of Bully Forbes's 'perfect clipper', lost on her maiden voyage in 1855 – one of…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Sierra Nevada
A 71 m iron sailing ship driven onto the Portsea back beach reef in 1900 with the loss of 23 of her 28 crew – plate, framing,…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Sir William McPherson
A 1912 Dutch-built steam dredge with stern boilers you can swim between, standing engine exhausts, surviving timber decking and a…
WreckShipwreck Coast & Warrnambool
Socrates
Timbers of an 1821 whaling barque driven onto East Beach in 1843 – the oldest of Port Fairy's three shore wrecks and one of the…
Go deeper into the history
Use heritage records to investigate a vessel’s identity and story, then check site managers and operators separately for present-day access.
DCCEEW — Underwater cultural heritage
Australian underwater heritage framework and research resources.
Open primary source ↗WA Museum — Maritime Archaeology Databases
Researching ship identities, archaeological records and artefacts.
Open primary source ↗DCCEEW — Underwater heritage protected zones
Site-specific protected zones and activities requiring permission.
Open primary source ↗