The SS Ferret had one of the most colourful careers of any vessel wrecked in South Australian waters. She was an iron-hulled, schooner-rigged screw steamer built in Glasgow in 1871, about 52 m long and 460 tons. In 1880 she was stolen from Glasgow by a gang of fraudsters, disguised under new names, and sailed halfway around the world on what the press called a piracy voyage before being seized in Melbourne in 1881.

She was later sold and spent decades as a coastal trader in Australian waters. On 14 November 1920, in dense fog near Althorpe Island, her master altered course and she ran ashore at the southern end of what is now Ethel Beach. All 22 crew survived.

The Department for Environment and Water notes that her boiler is now the most prominent feature, with other remains scattered and periodically covered by the shifting sand that also hides and reveals the neighbouring Ethel. Like the Ethel, the Ferret is a walk-in heritage site in the surf zone rather than a dive. The beach is dangerous for swimming, and the wreckage is best appreciated at low tide from the sand, together with the interpretive signs at the clifftop lookout that tell both ships' stories.

It is worth the visit on a day when swell closes the dive sites around Innes, and it gives context to the many wrecks divers explore elsewhere on the Investigator Strait Shipwreck Trail – the Willyama, Hougomont, Marion and Althorpe Island wrecks. Allow an hour for the round trip from the car park, including time on the stairs, and time the visit for low tide so the boiler can be approached safely on the sand.

From Adelaide drive about 300 km (3.5 hours) via Port Wakefield, Minlaton and Warooka to Marion Bay; Dhilba Guuranda-Innes National Park begins just west of the township (vehicle entry fee, pay online or at the Stenhouse Bay visitor centre). Follow the main park road west from Stenhouse Bay about 11 km to the Ethel Wreck car park. Take the steep stairs down to Ethel Beach; the Ferret's boiler lies a short walk from the Ethel's ribs.

Visit at low tide on a calm day.

Ethel Beach is a high-energy, south-west-facing surf beach exposed to the full Southern Ocean swell, with rips and breaking waves at most tides. The Ferret remains are best seen on foot at low tide; entering the water is only conceivable on rare flat days with no swell, and even then there is little to see beyond what is visible from the beach. Sand cover changes seasonally.

Not a dive. Walk to the boiler at low tide as part of an Ethel Beach visit.

Not a dive site – no operator. Visited on foot by park visitors.