Stansbury is a quiet holiday town on Oyster Bay, once a major shipping point for grain and oysters, and its long town jetty is one of the string of old Yorke Peninsula jetties that can be dived as an easy shore entry. It does not have the reputation of Edithburgh or Wool Bay and is only lightly documented as a dive site, but it offers the same basic ingredients: timber piles colonised by sponges, ascidians and algae, standing over sand and seagrass in shallow, sheltered water. Depths are modest, from a metre or so near the shore to around 6-7 m at the outer end at high tide.

The piles carry a lighter growth than Edithburgh, but divers report the usual cast for the area: nudibranchs, decorator and spider crabs, small octopus, cowfish, globefish, leatherjackets and schools of tommy ruff and garfish around the end. Blue swimmer crabs are common on the sand (and are the reason the jetty is popular with anglers and crabbers), and southern calamari hover near the lights at night. Seahorses and pipefish can be found on the weedier piles, and the seagrass fringe is worth scanning for leafy seadragons, which occur along this whole coast.

The appeal of Stansbury is convenience and calm. It is a straightforward first jetty dive, a practical training site, a night dive when you are staying in town, and a fallback when the south coast is unworkable. Snorkellers enjoy the shallow inner section in summer.

Its limitations are its shallowness at low tide, fairly low visibility on anything but settled westerly days, and heavy fishing use. Divers looking for the classic Yorke jetty experience should prioritise Edithburgh and Wool Bay, 30-40 minutes south, but Stansbury is worth a dive for anyone based in town.

From Adelaide follow the Yorke Highway to Ardrossan and then the coast road south through Port Vincent to Stansbury (about 205 km, 2.5 hours). The jetty is at the end of Adelaide Road on the foreshore in the centre of town, beside the caravan park and boat ramp. Park on the foreshore at the jetty head; the gear carry is short.

Enter by the jetty steps or ladder once the water is deep enough, or at higher tides walk in from the sand beside the base. Swim out under the jetty; the deeper outer section is a long fin at low tide.

This coast faces Gulf St Vincent, so onshore easterly, north-easterly and south-easterly winds ruin it: 15 knots from the east stirs the fine sediment and drops visibility to a metre or two, and a strong south-easterly adds chop and surge. Westerly and south-westerly winds blow offshore and give the flattest, clearest water, best after a day or two of settled weather. There is no ocean swell inside the gulf.

Tides are modest (1-2 m, with 'dodge' tides of little movement), but shallow jetties are easier around high water. Autumn is calmest; summer south-east sea breezes build in the afternoon, so dive mornings. Oyster Bay is broad and shallow, so tidal state matters more here than at Edithburgh: the inner jetty can be almost dry at low water.

Enter at high tide, fin out along one side of the piles to the outer end in 5-7 m, search the base of the piles and the surrounding seagrass edge, then return on the other side. Keep an eye on boat traffic from the nearby ramp.

No regular operator; dived independently by visiting and local divers, and occasionally on Adelaide shop weekends as an alternative to Edithburgh.