The Thistle was a two-masted wooden brigantine of 58 tons, built in 1825 at Fort Gloster on the Hooghly in Bengal, India, and bought in 1831 by the Henty family, who used her to explore and supply their settlements in Van Diemen's Land and at Portland Bay – she carried the first Henty party to Portland in 1834, which makes her a founding vessel of European Victoria. On Christmas Day 1837, while her crew were ashore at Port Fairy collecting wattle bark, a south-east gale parted her anchor cables in the afternoon and drove her onto the beach, a total loss. Over the following years her upper works were salvaged for building timber or rotted away and the hull sank into the sand. She is historically notable as one of only four Asian-built vessels known to have been lost on the Victorian coast in the nineteenth century, and, with the Regia at Portland, one of only two that have been located.

What can be seen depends on the sand. In the shallows opposite Rogers Place, in 1–3 m, sections of timber, iron fastenings and ballast are exposed from time to time and reburied at others, on a bottom of sand and low reef within wading distance of the beach. It is a snorkel rather than a dive, needing calm conditions and a very low swell because the bay opens to the east and south-east, and it takes twenty minutes. Its interest is entirely historical, and it is best visited as part of the Port Fairy Shipwreck Walk, which interprets the thirty vessels lost in and around the bay between 1836 and 1876 – almost all of them, like the Thistle, driven ashore from their anchors by southerly gales in the years before the Moyne River was made into a harbour. The Lydia and Socrates lie a few hundred metres north along the same beach and the Essington a little south, and all four are protected historic shipwrecks.

From the Port Fairy town centre cross the Moyne River on Gipps Street and follow the roads east to Rogers Place, one of the short streets running down to East Beach between Battery Lane and the surf club; park at the street end and walk 50 m over the dune to the sand. The wreck lies directly offshore in the shallows. The Lydia is 200 m north and the Socrates 350 m north, so the three can be walked or swum in one visit.

Warrnambool Diving (28 km) is the nearest dive shop; Port Fairy has no air.

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 Rogers Place and snorkel or dive the shallows in 1–3 m, searching the sand and low reef for exposed timbers, fastenings and ballast; the remains have sunk into the sand and only parts show at any time. Continue north along the beach to the Lydia and Socrates if conditions allow, and walk back along the sand.

No operator – snorkelled by locals and shipwreck enthusiasts on flat days; part of the Port Fairy Shipwreck Walk interpretation.