The 12 Best Jetty & Pier Dives in Australia
Ranked on macro life, shelter and ease of entry.
Southern Australia's jetties are a phenomenon. Built for coastal steamers and grain ships and long since abandoned by commercial traffic, their pylons have become vertical reefs in shallow, sheltered water, and the sand and seagrass around them holds the seadragons, seahorses, anglerfish, cuttlefish and octopus that make the region famous for macro diving. Most are dived at night as often as by day.
1. Ningaloo – Exmouth · WA
Exmouth Navy Pier
A working naval pier that shelters more fish per square metre than almost any site in Australia. Guided dives only.
2. Mornington Peninsula · VIC
Blairgowrie Pier
Victoria's best: dragons, cuttlefish, frogfish, seahorses and the May spider crab aggregation.
3. Fleurieu Peninsula & Victor Harbor · SA
Rapid Bay Jetty
Leafy seadragons under two jetties on the Fleurieu Peninsula.
5. Geographe Bay & Busselton · WA
Busselton Jetty
1.8 km of coral-covered pylons and an underwater observatory in Geographe Bay.
7. Mornington Peninsula · VIC
Portsea Pier
Port Phillip's oldest dive pier, good by day and superb at night.
8. Mornington Peninsula · VIC
Rye Pier
A long shallow pier on the Mornington Peninsula with a resident sea dragon population and spider crabs in season.
9. Sydney Harbour · NSW
Chowder Bay / Clifton Gardens
Sydney Harbour's naval wharf with seahorses and pygmy pipehorses.
12. Whyalla & Upper Spencer Gulf · SA
Whyalla Jetty (Foreshore)
Spencer Gulf's town jetty, with giant cuttlefish drifting through in winter.