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
WreckRottnest Island
HNLMS K XI Submarine Wreck
A 1924 Dutch colonial submarine, lost for almost 80 years and found in 2025, lying in 38 m with torpedo tubes still visible.
WreckGeraldton & Abrolhos Islands
Hadda Wreck (Beacon Island)
Iron knees of an 1877 guano barque amid lush coral gardens in a sanctuary zone near Beacon Island.
Artificial ReefBrisbane & Moreton Bay
Harry Atkinson Artificial Reef
One of Australia's oldest artificial reefs (1975), with the 24 m Tiwi Pearl scuttled in 2010 – but diving is currently prohibited.
DriftTasmania West Coast
Hells Gates (Macquarie Harbour)
The infamous entrance to Macquarie Harbour, with two shallow historic wrecks on its spits.
Details need confirmationWreckEden & Green Cape
Henry Bolte
A broken but intriguing tug wreck with a high stern section full of nannygai, propeller and towing winch, beside the Tasman…
WreckSydney South & Botany Bay
Hereward wreck (Maroubra Beach)
The iron hull and mast fragments of an 1898 clipper periodically uncovered in the Maroubra surf, 50 m from the sand.
WreckPerth
Highland Forest Wreck
The kelp-covered bow of a barque on which Joseph Conrad once served, next to good reef caves and swim-throughs.
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…
WreckShoalhaven Coast
Hive Wreck Site
Site of an 1835 convict-ship wreck from which 250 convicts survived; heritage-listed buried remains.
WreckPort Phillip Heads
Holyhead
A 90 m four-masted iron barque lost on her maiden voyage in 1890 – rudder and steering gear, windlass, mast stumps and…
WreckSydney Northern Beaches
Hopper Barge 656 (Long Reef)
An intact 50 m MSB hopper barge on the Long Reef reef ground with an accessible bow void, in the clear water 3 nautical miles out.
Details need confirmationAircraft WreckFar Northern Reef & Torres Strait
Horn Island WWII sites
Scattered B-17 bomber debris in the tidal shallows off a WWII airfield – history rather than scenery.
Details need confirmationWreckTownsville & Magnetic Island
Horseshoe Bay Wrecks (Magnetic Island)
Two shallow modern wrecks – a 40 m burnt-out floating-restaurant ketch and a prawn trawler – in the island's most sheltered bay…
Details need confirmationReefSwain Reefs
Horseshoe Reef (Swain Reefs)
The Swains' most varied reef: a big sheltered lagoon, deep walls to 35 m and a wreck site.
Details need confirmationWreckYorke Peninsula
Hougomont Wreck
A dismasted 1897 four-masted barque of the Erikson grain fleet, scuttled as a breakwater with bow and stern still upright in 9 m…
WreckMelbourne & Port Phillip Bay
Hurricane
An 1853 iron clipper lying in 8–12 m of sheltered bay water – stern rising 3 m with a heritage cairn, a capstan at the bow and…
WreckBrisbane & Moreton Bay
Hustler 3 Wreck
A small, coral-covered trawler wreck at 22 m that draws schools of sweetlips and snapper.
Details need confirmationReefSurf Coast & Great Ocean Road
Ingoldsby Reef
Lush shallow kelp-and-limestone reef inside Point Addis Marine National Park where crays walk in the open, scattered with iron…
Details need confirmationWallPort Phillip Heads
Inner Corsair Wall
Ledge-and-cave wall from a kelp-topped 10 m reef down to 60 m between Nepean Wall and Corsair Rock, with RMS Australia wreckage…
WreckPortland & the West
Isabella, Cape Nelson
The 1837 wreck of the barque whose captain mistook Cape Nelson for Julia Percy Island – one of the oldest located wrecks in…
Details need confirmationWreckSydney Harbour
Itata wreck (Salt Pan Creek)
The burnt-out iron hull of an 1883 barque abandoned in a mangrove-lined Middle Harbour creek – Sydney's zero-visibility training…
WreckTurquoise Coast
J P Webb Wreck (Ledge Point)
A boiler and triple-expansion steam engine in 4 m on the reef that wrecked this 1951 delivery voyage.
WreckPort Phillip Heads
J1 Submarine
An intact 84 m WWI submarine standing upright in 38 m and blanketed in yellow zoanthids; hatch access into the control room for…
WreckPort Phillip Heads
J2 Submarine
A WWI J-class submarine snapped in two, with the open cross-section of the pressure hull visible at the break; rarely crowded.
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 ↗