Bare Back Cove is one of the string of small quartz-sand coves on the eastern Prom between Refuge Cove and Waterloo Bay, and Parks Victoria's park note lists it, with Horn Point and Waterloo Bay, among the Prom's popular locations for experienced divers. Scuba Doctor calls it a safe site suitable for scuba diving from a boat and snorkelling from the shore, facing north into Bass Strait with low waves at the shore. The beach is about 50 m of coarse white quartz sand with seagrass in the deeper water off it, and the dive is on the granite boulders at the southern end, which run out and around the headland from 2 m to 30 m.

Those boulders host, in the listing's words, sponges, ascidian sea squirts, gorgonian sea fans and zoanthid yellow sea daisies, and their crevices hold bullseyes, blue devilfish and bearded cod – the last a species divers rarely see elsewhere in Victoria, sitting in the darkest holes. The kelp and seagrass shallows have wrasse, leatherjackets, old wives and cuttlefish, and the sand between holds stingarees and flathead. Overnight walkers on the Prom's eastern circuit pass through the cove and it is a pleasant snorkel from the beach for them; for scuba divers it is a boat site reached from Port Welshpool, usually combined with Waterloo Bay's north wall 1.2 km to the south or Larkin Cove and Brown Head Pinnacle to the north.

Its shelter from southerly and westerly winds makes it a useful anchorage and a good first or last dive of an eastern Prom trip, and its range – seagrass, boulders and sponge-covered rock to 30 m – gives every level of diver something.

Boat only. Launch at Port Welshpool (sealed all-tide ramp, jetty and trailer parking on Corner Inlet, 2.5 hours from Melbourne) and run south through Corner Inlet's marked channels and out past Rabbit Island down the eastern Prom coast – about 30–40 km and 60–90 minutes to Sealers/Refuge Cove, longer to Waterloo Bay and South East Point. The coast is exposed to easterly and southerly swell and has no facilities; carry fuel, radio and all air, and plan around the weather window and Corner Inlet tides.

Bare Back Cove is about 36 km from Port Welshpool, just south of Brown Head; anchor in sand off the boulders at the southern end. Snorkellers can reach the cove on foot from the Refuge Cove–Waterloo Bay walking track (overnight walkers only – it is a long way from Tidal River).

Faces north with low waves at the shore; best with calm seas, no swell and no wind, with light offshore south-westerly to south-easterly winds acceptable and strong onshore northerly to easterly winds not. One of the more protected eastern Prom sites in southerly weather. Autumn and settled summer days.

The eastern Prom coast is reached only after a long boat run from Port Welshpool, so the whole day's forecast must be settled: swell under 1–1.5 m, light winds, and no change due. Easterly and south-easterly swell is the main problem on this coast; a westerly wind flattens it but makes Corner Inlet's entrance choppy on the ebb. Visibility is typically 10–25 m and best in autumn after several calm days.

Descend from the boat onto the granite boulders at the southern end of the cove at 8–15 m and follow them seaward and south around the headland to a maximum of 25–30 m, looking under the boulders for the sponge and gorgonian growth. Turn at half gas, come back over the seagrass at 5–8 m and finish under the boat; snorkellers work the boulders from the beach.

No dive charter operates at Wilsons Promontory. Sites are dived from club and private trailer boats – Dive La Trobe, VSAG, Melbourne University Underwater Club and Dive Victoria Group run occasional camping-and-diving trips – launching at Tidal River (beach launch, permit/key from Parks Victoria), Port Welshpool or Sandy Point. Wilsons Promontory Cruises (Port Welshpool) runs sightseeing cruises to Skull Rock and the islands but no diving.