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
560 wreck-related recordsRecorded information, not live availability
Artificial ReefHobart & Derwent
Droughty Point Floating Bridge Section
A 177 m section of Hobart's old floating bridge in 20-28 m, carpeted in jewel anemones.
Details need confirmationShore/Rock PlatformRottnest Island
Duck Rock & Transit Plinth
A genuine walk-in reef dive near the ferry, with caves off the rock and the plinth marking Rottnest's first shipwreck (1842).
WreckSydney South & Botany Bay
Dunbar wreck (South Head)
The resting place of Sydney's worst shipwreck (121 lives, 1857): ballast blocks, copper sheathing, anchors and fragments of china…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Dunloe
An 1870 Clyde-built iron barque and coal hulk whose 1947 scuttling nearly ended in disaster – intact bow, blown-out stern, in…
WreckEsperance & Recherche Archipelago
Dunster Castle Wreck (Stokes Inlet)
Boiler, engine and a 20 m hull section of a 1916 steamship in the surf zone of a remote national park.
Details need confirmationWreckPilbara & Dampier
Eddystone
A triple-expansion engine and bent propeller shaft swept by giant trevally.
WreckTasmania North & North-West
Eden Holme (Hebe Reef)
Ribs and plates of a 1907 iron barque, 40 m from the Esk on Hebe Reef.
Details need confirmationWreckShipwreck Coast & Warrnambool
Edinburgh Castle
Concrete casts of 1888 cement barrels around a windlass and anchor in 4–5 m of Lady Bay sand – the barque that came to build the…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Edward Northcote
Sister of the H.C. Piggot and a WWI minesweeper, the last Harbour Trust barge scuttled (1952) – substantially intact hull with…
WreckPerth
Eglinton Wreck
The oldest wreck on the north-metro coast, an 1852 settler ship, with large reef caves beside it.
WreckChristmas Island
Eidsvold Wreck
WWII history in 5–18 m: the broken-up Norwegian freighter Eidsvold, torpedoed in Flying Fish Cove in 1942, now overgrown with…
WreckEyre Peninsula
Eleni K Wreck
An upright 134.6 m WWII Liberty ship in 11-13 m with her bridge 2 m below the surface – one of South Australia's best wreck dives.
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Eliza Ramsden
Upright iron barque lost in 1875 after striking Corsair Rock: intact starboard plating and decking, bluestone ballast and a…
WreckDarwin Harbour
Ellengowan
Darwin Harbour's oldest known shipwreck - an 1866 Norwegian-built missionary steamer with its boiler standing proud.
WreckPortland & the West
Emily S
A 30 m trawler sitting upright and intact in 24 m in the lee of Lawrence Rocks, with resident weedy seadragons at the propeller –…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Empress of the Sea
The burnt-out remains of a Donald McKay clipper beached in Nepean Bay in 1861 after an arson fire – keel, frames, copper…
WreckShipwreck Coast & Warrnambool
Essington
The deepest of Port Fairy Bay's four shore-accessible wrecks: partly buried timbers of an 1826 Sydney-built brig lost in an 1852…
Details need confirmationWreckYorke Peninsula
Ethel Wreck
South Australia's most photographed wreck: the iron ribs of an 1876 barque rising from the sand of a wild Innes surf beach, best…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Euro
A remarkably complete 1897 steam tug – triple-expansion engine, boilers, tow anchor, steering quadrant and even the toilets –…
WreckTurquoise Coast
Europa Wreck (Three Breaks Reef)
An 1897 iron barque on a reef with a cargo field of bottles, a swim-through and a natural sink to 14 m.
ReefHuon & Far South
Evoralls Point (Recherche Bay)
Shallow seaweed gardens beside the relics of the Catamaran coal mines, with possible remains of the whaler Offley.
Details need confirmationWreckSunshine 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…
WreckCapricorn Coast & Keppel Islands
FV Linda Jane Wreck
A little-known 35 m trawler wreck whose unpublished position has kept its big groper, red emperor and jewfish intact.
Details need confirmationGo 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 ↗