The Playground is one of the deep wall sections at the western side of the Port Phillip entrance. The Scuba Doctor listing describes the wall as running east–west, gives a depth range of 15–50 m, and places it in the shipping channel just outside the Heads – a position that dictates everything about how it is dived. The top of the wall is at about 15 m and the face drops past a lip to roughly 50 m, cut with small caves and overhangs that the guide credits with 'abundant fish life', calling it one of the prettiest dives in the Port Phillip area. Crayfish are listed as the primary attraction.

The listing's coordinates come with a caveat: an alternative mark 800 m to the south (-38.297333, 144.6292) is recorded as the 'Mystery Playground', whose current condition is unknown, and the site is referred to as being on 'Rip Bank' in the general sense of the entrance banks rather than the named Rip Bank site on the Nepean side. Divers should treat the position as approximate and rely on a skipper who has dived it.

This is not a recreational charter regular. It is dived only on slack water at the end of the flood, so that when the tide resumes it carries divers into the bay and not out through The Rip, and only in calm conditions at the entrance. Tech and experienced deep divers use it as a change from the central wall, and it rewards them with a wall that sees fewer divers than Party Point or The Mall. The Other Playground, 107 m to the north-east, is its companion site with the same profile.

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 close to the western side of the entrance in the channel, 107 m south-west of The Other Playground. 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 at the end of the flood (SWF), so that any current after the turn carries divers back into the bay rather than out through The Rip. 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.

Being outside or right at the entrance, it is exposed to Bass Strait swell: anything over about 1.5 m from the south-west or south, or a strong southerly/westerly wind against the ebb, produces standing waves in The Rip and charters cancel. Northerlies flatten the entrance and give the best days. 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. Because it is at the entrance and in the channel, it is only dived on the end of the flood so that divers drift into the bay, and only when the entrance is calm.

Enter on the shot at the top of the wall (15 m) just before the flood slack. Drop over the lip to a planned maximum – 35–40 m for experienced recreational divers, 50 m for technical teams – and work east along the small caves and overhangs. Turn early: at the first sign of the flood resuming, leave the wall and ascend to 15 m, deploy a DSMB and let the new flood carry you inside while completing stops.

50 m at the base; flood-slack-only. Trimix recommended below 40 m; all deco drifting under DSMB with a tracking boat.

Dive Victoria Group (Portsea/Queenscliff) – runs the deep Heads walls for advanced and technical divers on suitable slack-water days; Red Boats (Queenscliff) – deep-wall and technical charters on request; otherwise private club boats (VSAG, Power House Underwater Club, Scuba Diving Melbourne). Not a routine training-boat site.