Bottlewasher Reef is Darwin's quirkiest artificial reef. Its centrepiece is a decommissioned Coca-Cola bottle-washing machine – a large steel industrial unit from a bottling plant – sunk at Anglers Reef off Lee Point together with about 1,500 tonnes of concrete culverts. The NT Government lists the site at 15 m; DSAC records a maximum of 12 m, reflecting how much the depth varies with the tide.

The bottle washer stands up off the bottom as a boxy steel frame full of gantries, rollers and compartments, which gives fish plenty of places to hide and gives divers a recognisable feature in poor visibility. Around it the culverts lie in piles and scattered blocks, forming ledges and short tunnels.

Marine growth is heavy: sponges, oysters, hydroids and algae coat the steel, with small soft corals on the upper parts. Resident fish include golden snapper, fingermark, estuary cod and black jewfish, and baitfish schools draw trevally and queenfish. The rubble and mud margins are worth checking for rays, flathead, octopus and crabs.

The combination of shallow depth and a close-to-ramp position makes Bottlewasher one of the easier offshore dives for Darwin boat owners. Visibility is the constant challenge – typically a few metres, and sometimes less – so this is a site for patient divers who enjoy fish encounters at close range rather than wide views. It suits Open Water divers with local experience and makes a good check-out or second dive. Because Rick Mills and Truck Tipper are only a few kilometres to the west, a boat can cover all three Lee Point reefs on one neap-tide morning, and comparing the three shows how different scrap materials have been colonised over the years.

The Lee Point reefs lie a few kilometres offshore from Lee Point on Darwin's northern suburbs coast, at the western entrance to Shoal Bay. The nearest launch is the Buffalo Creek boat ramp off Lee Point Road (about 20 minutes' drive from the CBD; trailer parking beside the ramp), which is tidal and can be unusable near low water on big tides – check the tide chart before towing out. From the creek mouth it is a short run north-west to the reefs; boats from Cullen Bay or the harbour ramps come around East Point and up the coast past Nightcliff and Casuarina.

There are no moorings; find the reef on GPS and sounder and drop a shot or grapnel on the structure.

The Lee Point reefs are shallow and close to shore, so they are strongly affected by tide and run-off from Buffalo Creek and Shoal Bay. Dive only on neap tides at slack water – on springs the 6–7 m range drives strong currents and stirs up silt, dropping visibility to near zero. Best in the dry season (May–October) on calm mornings before the south-east trade wind builds; a south-easterly is partly offshore here, but anything over 15 knots makes anchoring on the reef difficult.

In the wet season (December–April) north-westerly monsoon winds make the coast rough, run-off turns the water brown, cyclones are possible and box jellyfish are present.

Descend the shot to the bottle-washing machine – the largest single object – and use it as the reference. Circuit it at 12 m, then explore the surrounding culvert piles, returning to the machine between excursions. Long bottom times are possible at this depth; turn back to the shot as the current starts.

No regular dive operator. Visited occasionally by Darwin Sub Aqua Club members and by private boats; Darwin operators such as Dive Darwin may run a trip on request. The reefs are primarily used by recreational anglers.