Fairy Bower is the western arm of the Cabbage Tree Bay reserve, the stretch between the Manly Beach headland and Shelly Beach along which the Marine Parade promenade runs. The dive begins from a pocket of sand and rock beside the 1929 Fairy Bower ocean pool and follows a reef that starts with a fairly prominent wall, then flattens into low rock with kelp and weed, before the western side produces very large boulders off the wall and cracks and overhangs in the wall itself. Large concrete sewer pipes cross the bottom, and a motorcycle dumped in the late 1980s has become a landmark.

Depths are 3–8 m for most of the swim, 10 m at the outer edge, and the site is entirely within the no-take reserve. Since the early 2000s this side of the bay has been the place to see dusky whaler sharks, young animals of about a metre that appear each summer and hang just off the bottom along the sand edge, up to fifteen on a good day and gone again by winter; they are entirely harmless and the reason Pro Dive lists March as the month to come. The rest of the cast is the reserve's: large flathead on the sand, blue groper, schools of surgeonfish, yellowtail and sea pike, moray eels in the wall, fiddler and numb rays, cuttlefish and octopus in the cracks, Port Jackson sharks in winter, and little penguins from the Manly colony fishing overhead in spring.

Fixed life is sparse – this is not a sponge dive – but Frog Dive rightly calls it a good place for turtles, sharks and rays. It is quieter than Shelly, shallower, and better protected from a north-easter, and it is the best night dive in the bay, when the eels and rays come out and the sharks are most confiding. Parking is the only real difficulty.

Fairy Bower suits beginners, night divers and anyone who wants the reserve's animals without the Shelly crowds; the two sites are usually combined into a single loop by divers with the air for it.

From Manly Wharf walk 800 m along Marine Parade to the Fairy Bower ocean pool (10 minutes); by car, Bower Street/Bower Lane has only 2-hour metered and residential parking that is severely limited – most divers drop gear and a buddy at the pool and park up the hill or at Shelly Beach. Gear up on the promenade and walk 100–150 m to the stairs down to the pocket beach immediately left (east) of the pool. Enter over sand and low rock; exit the same way or at Shelly Beach 400 m east if the western bay is surging.

Fairy Bower is the more sheltered half of Cabbage Tree Bay in a north-east swell, when Shelly's headland side surges, but it is the first to feel a southerly or south-easterly swell refracting around the Manly headland into the bay; over about 1.2 m from the south the pocket-beach entry becomes a wash zone. Best on westerlies and light winds with under 1 m swell. Visibility 5–12 m, poorer after rain and north-easterly blows.

Shallow throughout, so any tide works; night dives are the best time for the eels, rays and sharks.

Descend in 2–3 m off the pocket beach and head north then east along the reef edge with the promenade on your right, passing the prominent wall, the concrete sewer pipes and the sunken motorcycle (there since the late 1980s) in 5–7 m. Continue for about ten minutes until the reef turns to run almost due south; that is the turnaround. Return on a slightly different line across sand and reef, watching the sand edge for dusky whalers a metre or two off the bottom, and finish in the shallows by the pool.

Dive Centre Manly – guided shore dives daily (morning, afternoon and night) and Open Water courses; Pro Dive Manly – guided shore dives and courses most days; Sydney Dive Charters – guided shore dives with Manly Wharf pick-up; Frog Dive, Abyss, Dive 2000 and Plunge Diving on courses and club nights. Pro Dive Manly lists Fairy Bower separately from Shelly for its penguins, swim-throughs and March dusky whalers.