The Links owes its name and its character to an accident. In the late 1980s the Japanese freighter Ningan Maru suffered a steering failure approaching the Heads. The pilot ordered the anchor let go to keep the ship off the rocks; once steering was recovered the chain was found to be fouled on the seabed and was cut free, leaving a great length of heavy ship's cable lying across the Lonsdale Wall. The Scuba Doctor listing describes the result: the chain 'hangs like a necklace draped over the wall and over bommies as it drops from 18 metres to 60 metres at the bottom', and after more than thirty years it is 'overgrown in beautiful sponges'.

The chain gives the site something no other section of the wall has – a fixed line from the reef top to the base. Divers follow it over the lip and down through the terraces, and each massive link has become a small reef of its own, colonised by orange and yellow sponges, zoanthids, hydroids and ascidians, with blue devils and crayfish in the shelter where the links cross rock. The wall around the chain is the standard eastern Lonsdale Wall – a reef top at 16–18 m, overhangs at each step, and a base at about 60 m – with the bommies the chain crosses adding extra structure in the 25–35 m band.

Because the chain runs all the way to 60 m it is a favourite with technical divers, who can descend and ascend along it; recreational divers should decide on a depth before leaving the reef top, because the chain makes it very easy to keep going. It is dived on both slacks and pairs naturally with Toms Cave next door. As an artefact of the Heads' shipping history it is also one of the more memorable dives on the wall.

Boat access only. Charter boats leave from Portsea Pier (Dive Victoria Group, Bayplay) and Queenscliff Harbour (Dive Victoria Group, Red Boats); run time is about 15 minutes. Private boats launch at Sorrento Boat Ramp (Point Nepean Road, Sorrento, all-tide concrete ramp with trailer parking) or Queenscliff Boat Harbour ramp (Larkin Parade, Queenscliff), roughly 15 minutes to the site.

The site is on the eastern Lonsdale Wall beside Toms Cave, roughly midway between Point Lonsdale and Shortland Bluff. Skippers must call Lonsdale VTS (Point Lonsdale) or listen to VHF 12 for shipping movements before dropping divers, and must carry a dive flag; anchoring is not permitted in the shipping channel, so a live boat and a drop-shot or drift float is the normal method.

It is dived only on slack water, either at the end of the flood (SWF) or the end of the ebb (SWE); most operators prefer the flood slack so that any residual current sets into the bay rather than out to sea. Slack water at Port Phillip Heads does not coincide with high or low water: it falls roughly three hours after high or low water at Point Lonsdale, and the usable window is typically 20–40 minutes. Use the Ports Victoria / Port of Melbourne slack-water predictions for The Heads (also republished by charter operators and WillyWeather 'Rip Bank') rather than a standard tide table.

Inside the Heads it is sheltered from most swell, but a south-west swell over about 2 m still surges across the top of the wall and a westerly or south-westerly wind over 15–20 knots makes the boat work unpleasant; big seas outside drop visibility to a few metres for a day or two. Visibility is best in late summer and autumn (Feb–May) when the water is clear and the westerlies have eased; winter brings 11–13 °C water and bigger swells but often the clearest days after a run of settled weather. Heavy rain has little effect this close to the ocean.

Shot onto the reef top at 16–18 m near the top of the chain. Follow the chain over the lip and down the wall to your planned maximum (30–35 m recreational, deeper for tech), using it as a hand-rail and navigation line, then leave it and traverse the overhangs at 25 m before climbing back to the reef top. DSMB from 16 m and drift.

Chain runs to the base at ~60 m and is used as an ascent/descent line by trimix teams; deco still completed drifting under DSMB once the current returns.

Dive Victoria Group (Portsea and Queenscliff) – double boat dives to the Heads walls most days of the week, site chosen on the morning by slack-water time and swell; Bayplay Adventure Tours (Portsea) – weekend and holiday charters; Red Boats (Queenscliff) – weekend Heads charters; Melbourne clubs (VSAG, Power House Underwater Club, Scuba Diving Melbourne) run their own boats here regularly.