Manly Beach earns its place on Michael McFadyen's Sydney dive index for a single extraordinary event rather than for its diving. In June 1993 a southern right whale and her days-old calf spent several days resting in the shallows between the Manly and Shelly Beach headlands, never more than 200 m from the sand, moving slowly up and down about 300 m of beach while crowds gathered on the promenade and headlands. With Dr Ian Gordon of Manly Oceanworld providing a boat to locate the animals and a 200 m boat exclusion zone in force, McFadyen and companions entered from the beach, descended to 4–5 m and swam slowly to the whales, which were relaxed and unhurried, and photographed the calf beside its mother – one of the very few scuba encounters with southern right whales recorded in Sydney.

As a dive site the beach itself has little to offer. It is a 1.5 km east-facing surf beach from South Steyne, beneath the Cabbage Tree Bay headland, to Queenscliff Head, with a sand bottom shelving gently to 4–6 m within 200 m of shore, the Queenscliff bombora breaking offshore at the northern end, and rips along both headlands. Board riders and swimmers fill it every day, lifeguards patrol it, and there is no reef except at the two rocky extremities, where the Fairy Bower reef begins to the south and the Queenscliff pool rocks to the north hold the usual blue groper, luderick, cuttlefish and, in winter, Port Jackson sharks; whales, dolphins and the occasional seal pass along the beach in season, and eagle rays and salmon schools are seen from the surf.

It is included for completeness of the McFadyen index and as a reminder that the whole Manly coastline, not just the reserve, occasionally produces something remarkable. It suits nobody as a planned dive; the adjoining Cabbage Tree Bay is where Manly's diving is.

Manly Wharf is 20 minutes by ferry from Circular Quay and a five-minute walk across the Corso to the beach; paid parking along North and South Steyne and in the Whistler Street car park. Divers who use the beach at all do so from the southern rocks beside Marine Parade below the Cabbage Tree Bay headland, or from the Queenscliff ocean-pool platform at the northern end, both only in near-flat seas; the surf zone itself is a lifeguard-patrolled swimming and board-riding beach where scuba is inappropriate. Exit where you entered.

An east-facing open surf beach with breaking waves on almost every day of the year; only on the rare flat winter day with a westerly is any part of it enterable, and even then rips run along both headlands and beside the Queenscliff bombora. Visibility in the surf zone is 3–5 m from suspended sand, better off the rocks at the ends. Lifeguards and board riders own the beach; divers should keep to the rocky extremities and stay well outside the flags.

Not a planned dive site. If entered from the southern rocks in flat seas, follow the sand-and-rock edge beneath the Cabbage Tree Bay headland at 4–6 m north-west for a short distance and return; anything further onto the open beach is sand. The 1993 whale encounter involved swimming out from the beach in 4–5 m to a mother and calf resting within 200 m of shore under a 200 m boat exclusion zone.

No operator dives the open beach; Dive Centre Manly and Pro Dive Manly work the adjoining Cabbage Tree Bay. Historically, Manly Oceanworld's boat supported McFadyen's 1993 whale dive here.