The Socrates was a three-masted wooden barque of 152 tons, built at Scarborough in Yorkshire in 1821, originally rigged as a schooner and later converted. By the 1840s she belonged to the Port Fairy whaling identities Michael Connolly and John Griffiths, and having spent years in the bay whaling trade she was working as a cargo vessel across Bass Strait. On 30 August 1843 she left Port Fairy for Launceston with cattle, sheep and whale oil, but a south-west gale drove her back into the bay. She parted her best bower anchor, then her second, drove onto the beach, fell on her beam ends and filled at once. A board of masters declared her a total wreck. Her loss in the same anchorage that would claim the Lydia four years later and had already claimed the Thistle illustrates why Port Fairy's merchants campaigned for the river harbour that was eventually cut through the Moyne.

The site, opposite Moyne Court at the northern end of the group, is in 1–3 m and consists of timbers, iron fastenings and ballast partly buried in sand. As with the Thistle and Lydia it is a wading snorkel on a flat day rather than a dive, and the three together, spaced along 400 m of East Beach, make an unusual and pleasant hour of maritime archaeology from the sand. The Socrates is the oldest of the three by build date and one of the oldest located wrecks in the state. It is a protected historic shipwreck; the Scuba Doctor's advice to dive it only in calm conditions with a very low swell is the whole of the practical guidance, and the Port Fairy Shipwreck Walk and Flagstaff Hill Maritime Museum supply the context.

From the Port Fairy town centre cross the Moyne River and follow the streets east to Moyne Court, which runs down to East Beach about 160 m north of Lydia Place; park at the street end and walk over the dune to the sand. The wreck lies directly offshore in the shallows, the northernmost of the three East Beach wrecks. Warrnambool Diving (28 km) is the nearest dive shop.

Port Fairy Bay opens to the east and south-east, and the town's history of thirty wrecks between 1836 and 1876 was written by southerly and south-easterly gales that drove anchored ships ashore. The shallow wreck sites in the bay require, in the Scuba Doctor's words, calm conditions and a very low swell – under about 0.5 m – with light offshore westerly to northerly winds; any easterly or south-easterly sea breaks in the bay and makes the sites both dangerous and opaque. Visibility is poor in any water movement.

High tide gives slightly more water over the remains; low tide exposes more to a walker. Check the Port Fairy Bay swell forecast before travelling.

Wade in opposite Moyne Court and snorkel or dive the shallows in 1–3 m for exposed timbers, fastenings and ballast, then work south along the beach to the Lydia and Thistle. Keep it short and get out if the swell picks up.

No operator – snorkelled by locals and shipwreck enthusiasts on flat days.