The Lady Cheryl is the newest wreck at Port Phillip Heads and the most intact. She was a 27 m steel stern trawler of 157 gross tons, built in 1987 as a purpose-designed deep-sea commercial fishing vessel with a forward wheelhouse. On 24 March 2012, entering Port Phillip, her master mistook the landmarks and ran her onto the reef at Point Nepean; she was refloated briefly, but she had been holed below the waterline and 'commenced sinking rapidly', settling on the reef just inside the point. All five crew were rescued. About 30,000 litres of diesel escaped into the bay, and the wreck was left where it lay once the fuel had been dealt with.

A decade on she is a good dive. She sits in 6–14 m on the reef between Nepean Bay and the entrance, upright enough to be readable as a ship, with her wheelhouse, deck and stern-trawling gear still in place and, as the Scuba Doctor listing notes, 'a huge gash along the starboard side giving access to the internals of the wreck' – the hole that sank her, now the way in for divers with the training to enter. The steel has been colonised quickly in the Heads current: sponges, ascidians and zoanthids on the hull, kelp on the upper works, and the fish of the Nepean reefs in and around her – bullseyes and old wives in the hull, blue devils under the stern, leatherjackets, wrasse and magpie perch over the deck, crayfish in the debris and cuttlefish in winter.

Shallow, intact and inside the Heads, she has become one of the Portsea fleet's regular wreck dives and a wreck-specialty training site, dived at slack water because of the entrance tide. The Empress of the Sea lies 590 m to the east in Nepean Bay, and the two make a contrasting pair: a 1853 clipper reduced to keel and ballast, and a 1987 trawler still wearing her wheelhouse.

Boat access only. Charter boats leave from Portsea Pier (Dive Victoria Group, Bayplay) and Queenscliff Harbour (Dive Victoria Group, Red Boats); run time is about 10 minutes. Private boats launch at Sorrento Boat Ramp (Point Nepean Road, Sorrento, all-tide concrete ramp with trailer parking) or Queenscliff Boat Harbour ramp (Larkin Parade, Queenscliff), roughly 12 minutes to the site.

The site is just inside Point Nepean on the reef between Nepean Bay and the entrance, 10 minutes west of Portsea Pier; the pilot boats and ferry pass close and a flag is required. Skippers must call Lonsdale VTS (Point Lonsdale) or listen to VHF 12 for shipping movements before dropping divers, and must carry a dive flag; anchoring is not permitted in the shipping channel, so a live boat and a drop-shot or drift float is the normal method.

It is dived only on slack water, either at the end of the flood (SWF) or the end of the ebb (SWE); most operators prefer the flood slack so that any residual current sets into the bay rather than out to sea. Slack water at Port Phillip Heads does not coincide with high or low water: it falls roughly three hours after high or low water at Point Lonsdale, and the usable window is typically 20–40 minutes. Use the Ports Victoria / Port of Melbourne slack-water predictions for The Heads (also republished by charter operators and WillyWeather 'Rip Bank') rather than a standard tide table.

Inside the Heads it is sheltered from most swell, but a south-west swell over about 2 m still surges across the top of the wall and a westerly or south-westerly wind over 15–20 knots makes the boat work unpleasant; big seas outside drop visibility to a few metres for a day or two. Visibility is best in late summer and autumn (Feb–May) when the water is clear and the westerlies have eased; winter brings 11–13 °C water and bigger swells but often the clearest days after a run of settled weather. Heavy rain has little effect this close to the ocean.

Close to the entrance on the Nepean side, so the tide is felt strongly and slack water is the rule; sheltered from southerlies, exposed to northerlies.

Shot onto the wheelhouse or the high side at 6–8 m at slack. Circle the 27 m hull on the sand at 12–14 m, look into the gash along the starboard side with a torch (trained divers with a line and buddy can enter the open sections), then finish over the deck and superstructure before ascending the shot or a DSMB.

Penetration through the starboard gash is possible for wreck-trained divers with line and lights; hull is deteriorating – check condition on the day.

Dive Victoria Group and Bayplay (Portsea) – regular, as a shallow wreck dive and wreck-specialty training site; Red Boats (Queenscliff) – frequent; private boats from Sorrento.