Long Reef Aquatic Reserve was the first aquatic reserve declared in New South Wales, gazetted in 1980 to protect about 80 hectares of the intertidal platform and adjoining waters from Collaroy rock baths south to the Long Reef Surf Life Saving Club and 100 m offshore. It is famous as a rock-platform study site visited by thousands of school students each year for its intertidal life, and the reserve's 'enjoy but don't collect' rule protects all invertebrates and plants; fishing for finfish is permitted in parts. As a dive it is little known, because the famous Long Reef sites, the Wall and the Apartments, are boat dives outside the reserve on the seaward face of the point.

The shore dive uses Fishermans Beach, the small sandy cove on the northern side of the headland where the local fishing club launches trailer boats. From the sand the bottom slopes gently to a boulder-and-kelp reef edge that runs east toward the point, with gutters between tumbled sandstone blocks, cunjevoi and kelp on the tops and small overhangs beneath. Depth is 3–8 m for most of the swim and reaches 10–12 m out near the reserve boundary.

It is not spectacular reef, but the protection shows: blue groper are tame and numerous, luderick, bream and red morwong are thick, Port Jackson sharks and wobbegongs shelter under the ledges in winter, and cuttlefish and octopus are common. Eagle rays and the occasional turtle cross the sand. The dive is for experienced shore divers who read swell well, because the platform is a wash zone in anything but calm seas and the point itself should never be approached from shore.

It matters as the shallow, no-boat window onto Long Reef and as a rare Northern Beaches shore dive north of Freshwater, but most divers will find the boat sites off the point a better use of a calm day.

From Pittwater Road at Collaroy turn east into Anzac Avenue and follow it to the Long Reef headland car park above Fishermans Beach (free, large, shared with the golf club and Long Reef Surf Life Saving Club). A sealed path and steps lead 100–150 m down to the beach at the northern foot of the headland, where the Fishermans Beach boat ramp (small trailer boats and the Long Reef fishing club) gives a flat sandy entry. Swim east along the northern edge of the reef platform; do not attempt the outer point from shore.

Exit back onto Fishermans Beach.

Long Reef is the most exposed headland on the Northern Beaches and the intertidal platform is swept by any swell over about 1 m from the south-east through north-east. The Fishermans Beach side faces north and is workable only in a southerly or south-westerly wind with swell under 1 m; a north-east swell wraps straight in. Dive on the top half of the tide to clear the platform edge.

Visibility is modest (3–10 m) because the shallow reef stirs easily; winter westerlies give the best days.

Enter at Fishermans Beach, swim out over sand to the reef edge and follow it east with the reef on your right, working through kelp gutters and boulders to 8–12 m near the reserve's offshore limit. Turn at half air or when the surge increases toward the point, and return along the reef with it on your left; surface only close to the beach because of small-boat traffic at the ramp.

No operator runs shore dives here; Abyss lists Long Reef as an experienced-diver shore site. Occasional club dives and Underwater Research Group surveys. Most divers see Long Reef from boats.