Bluefish Point is the big-animal dive of the Manly boat circuit, a stretch of the outer North Head cliff where the sandstone drops as a true vertical wall from 5 m to 22 m and then breaks into gutters and boulders sloping to sand at 24 m. The wall face is the colour of the site: every ledge and undercut carries sponges, sea tulips, soft corals and bryozoans in yellows, oranges and purples, and the caves at its base hold wobbegongs stacked two and three deep. Diveplanit describes it as 'a colourful vertical wall from 5 m down to 22 m'; the Sydney Dive Charters version emphasises 'a wall which usually has good schooling fish'.

Both are right. Schools of yellowtail, silver sweep and pomfret hang along the face, kingfish hunt the gutters, and bull rays and fiddler rays lie on the sand at the base. Giant cuttlefish gather here to breed in late winter and are approachable to within arm's length.

Weedy sea dragons live in the kelp on the wall top, and in the cooler months grey nurse sharks from the Bluefish Valley colony next door patrol the deeper gutters. Port Jackson sharks arrive in numbers to mate from July to September. Moray eels, blue groper, octopus and nudibranchs fill the gaps.

The site's history is less pretty: until the 1990s the Manly sewage outfall discharged nearby, which is why some older divers still avoid it after rain, but decades of clean water have restored it to one of the best reef dives in the city. Depth and the possibility of current make it an Advanced dive for most operators, though the wall top is shallow enough for guided Open Water divers in calm conditions. Bluefish Point suits photographers of both wide-angle scenery and macro, anyone wanting sharks and cuttlefish without a long boat ride, and it is the standard first dive of a Manly double with North Head sponge gardens second.

Boat only. Dive Centre Manly loads at Manly Cove beach beside the wharf; Pro Dive Manly and Sydney Dive Charters load at the Little Manly boat ramp (end of Stuart Street, Manly – free parking, set-up benches, toilets at the reserve); Sydney Dive Charters also picks up at Rose Bay public wharf. From Manly the run is 10–15 minutes out of Manly Cove, around the Shelly Beach headland and 1 km south along the cliffs to Bluefish Point on the ocean side of North Head, 20–25 minutes from Rose Bay.

Private boats launch at Little Manly, Roseville Bridge (Middle Harbour, 30 minutes) or Rose Bay. Boats anchor on the reef in 15–20 m or run in toward the cliff and drop the anchor when the bottom appears; there are no moorings, and many abandoned anchors litter the reef.

Bluefish Point and the outer eastern end of North Head face the open Tasman Sea and are exposed to south, south-east and east swell; surge is heavy in anything over 1.5 m and charters move inside the Heads. North-easterly sea breezes make the afternoon uncomfortable, so dives are in the morning. Current is usually mild but can run along the point on the tide.

Visibility is typically 10–20 m, best in the cooler months (May–September) when grey nurse and Port Jackson sharks are also present; the old Manly sewage outfall at Bluefish was decommissioned in the 1990s but the water is still dirtier for a day or two after heavy rain.

Descend the anchor to the base of the wall at 18–22 m. Follow the wall with it on your right (south), looking under the ledges and into the caves for wobbegongs, morays and PJ sharks, out to the boulder gutters at 22–24 m where kingfish school, then turn at half air and come back along the top of the wall at 10–12 m through the kelp where sea dragons live. Safety stop on the anchor line at 5 m against the shallow wall.

Dive Centre Manly – double boat dives most weekends and some weekdays from Manly Cove (10–15 minutes); Pro Dive Manly – weekend double boat dives from Little Manly; Sydney Dive Charters – guided double dives Thursdays and Sundays from Little Manly ramp and Rose Bay wharf; Frog Dive, Abyss and Dive 2000 on club/charter days. North Head is the default Sydney boat dive when ocean sites are blown out.