Sites reached only by multi-day liveaboard: the Ribbon Reefs, Osprey and the Coral Sea, the Far Northern Great Barrier Reef, the Rowley Shoals, the Kimberley and Ningaloo's outer reef trips.
45 sites
Broome & Kimberley · WA
A remote reef platform and seabird island with abundant sharks.
Geraldton & Abrolhos Islands · WA
Anemone-covered coral bommie from 38 m to 3 m with baitfish clouds, big plate corals and curious emperors.
Pilbara & Dampier · WA
A fully no-take marine park with a green turtle breeding aggregation.
Cannons and anchors of the 1629 Batavia – Australia's most notorious shipwreck and mutiny – in 7 m on Morning Reef.
Pelagic action in the passages beside Batavia's Graveyard, from a trail off the Beacon Island jetty.
Two shallow iron wrecks, one with its boiler above the surface, in the southern Abrolhos.
Rowley Shoals · WA
Sheltered lagoons with walls, coral heads and 40 m visibility — the Rowleys' easy classic.
WA's most remote island, ringed by reef and guano-era shipwrecks.
A relic of the failed 1864 Camden Harbour settlement.
A calm bommie and staghorn garden inside Clerke.
Light shafts through tunnels framed by red gorgonians.
A fast flood-tide drift through bommies into the lagoon.
A vertical atoll wall with pelagics in 30 m+ visibility.
Bumphead parrotfish and sharks over white sand, ending in a fast drift.
Steep coral slopes of finger and plate coral inside the Pelsaert lagoon.
Cupcake-shaped bommies with curious batfish.
Snorkelling with the Abrolhos's largest sea lion colony over pristine plate corals.
A field of hundreds of garden eels.
Iron knees of an 1877 guano barque amid lush coral gardens in a sanctuary zone near Beacon Island.
Big fish and reef sharks on the exposed seaward face of the reef that wrecked the Zeewijk.
Site of Britain's first atomic test, 1952.
The least-publicised atoll, with the Cunningham Island lighthouse.
Grey reefs and silvertips on a current-swept point.
A remote turtle and seabird sanctuary with the 1879 Manfred wreck.
Tropical staghorn with temperate fish at the island where the Batavia mutineers were executed.
An 1879 guano-era barque visible at low tide.
Caves on Mermaid Reef.
The Shoals' deepest wall, draped in red gorgonians.
Clear-water slope to a drop-off.
A 30 m gorgonian-covered drop-off with groper and sharks on the remote Montebellos.
Remote, rarely dived lagoons and reefs in a large sanctuary-zone marine park.
The world's largest inshore reef, draining in waterfalls on a 10 m tide.
A gentle reef slope with finger-coral shallows and low walls – good for mixed snorkel/dive groups.
A sanctuary drop-off with 20 m-plus visibility, crays, morays and baldchin groper.
Rowley Shoals pass named after the coral trout genus Plectropoma
Drifting coral gardens in wide passages, with clownfish and butterflyfish at 28-29°S.
Remote oceanic atolls with walls rising from 500 m, rarely dived.
One of Australia's most remote atolls.
Named Rowley Shoals site listed by Diveplanit and Divernet
Named Clerke Reef site listed by Diveplanit and Divernet among Rowley Shoals dives.
A gorgonian-covered wall plunging to 50 m.
Named Rowley Shoals site listed by Diveplanit and Divernet, centred on a large bommie.
Australia's oldest known shipwreck (1622), with cannons and anchors in 6 m.
Pristine shallow coral a short swim from the beach – the Abrolhos's most accessible snorkel via fly-in day tours.
Cannons of the 1727 Zeewijk, whose survivors built the first European boat in Australia.
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