Parsley Bay is a Victorian pleasure ground in a cleft of Vaucluse sandstone, with a white suspension footbridge across the mouth, lawns, a netted swimming area and a small ferry-era wharf on the eastern shore, 10 km from the city and almost unknown to divers. Michael McFadyen's write-up is the only detailed account. The dive is from the wharf: five metres of water under the steps, silty near the structures and sandier further out, deepening to 12 m toward the mouth of the bay.

Below and around the wharf are its piles and those of several earlier wharves, a small crane lying on the bottom, numerous mooring blocks and chains, and the net when it is in. It is a critter dive of real quality. White's seahorses live on the piles and net; moray and conger eels look out of the mooring blocks; decorator and spider crabs, pygmy leatherjackets, flathead, stingarees, flounder, lionfish, bream, luderick and squid are regular; nudibranchs and Port Jackson sharks turn up in season; and blue-ringed octopus, cuttlefish and painted sweetlips are seen occasionally.

On dark nights the bay's plankton lights up with phosphorescence at every fin stroke, which is a spectacle in itself. The bottom is extremely silty and a careless diver will reduce the visibility, already only 2–5 m, to nothing; it is not a place for trainees who have not yet mastered trim. The net is removed from June to September, which changes the seahorse population's habits.

Parsley Bay suits macro photographers, night divers and harbour explorers, and is at its best on a still winter night at high tide; there is no operator presence and parking in the residential streets is easy outside summer.

From New South Head Road through Rose Bay turn into Hopetoun Avenue, Vaucluse, and park at the far end of the Parsley Bay reserve next to the green electricity substation (free; residential streets fill in summer). Walk about 100 m through the reserve, under the suspension bridge, to the wharf on the eastern side of the bay. Giant-stride from the lower steps.

Exit by surfacing in front of the wharf and climbing onto the lowest step; a beach exit is available at the head of the bay at high tide.

Inside South Head the ocean swell is broken; the eastern harbour shore dives are exposed only to wind chop and, in the case of Camp Cove and Green Point, to a north-westerly or northerly blow that puts a short sea onto the beaches. They are at their best in a southerly, which flattens them completely, and on the top of a flood tide when clean ocean water has come in through the Heads (visibility 5–10 m; 15 m on a rare winter day). After heavy rain the harbour is brown for days and the dives are not worth doing.

Boat and ferry traffic is intense on summer weekends and public holidays, when the bays fill with anchored craft; early mornings, weekdays and nights are the times to dive. Parsley Bay is a deep, narrow inlet facing north-west and is sheltered from all swell and most wind; the water is extremely silty near the wharf and structures, so buoyancy discipline decides the visibility. The shark net is removed from June to September.

Strong phosphorescence on dark nights.

Drop straight down beneath the wharf to 5 m and check the piles, then head north-east and follow the reef edge north along the eastern shore, work west across the bay to find the small crane and the mooring blocks at 8–12 m, and return south along the bottom of the bay to the wharf, searching the old wharf piles on the way. Keep fins off the silt.

Dive 2000 and Abyss run occasional night dives and photography dives; mostly independent night divers.