The Truck Tipper reef is made from something unique to a mining territory: 20 side-tipper trailers from mining road trains, sunk with two decommissioned steel vessels in about 15 m of water off Lee Point. The steel tipper bodies – big open-topped bins designed to dump ore sideways – sit on the mud and sand in a loose group and have become a set of ready-made caves and overhangs for fish.

In 2005 local fishermen added the Kay Lee, a 15 m steel commercial fishing vessel donated by John Conway, close to the tipper site. DSAC describes her sitting upright with a slight list to port, wheelhouse and shade structure intact, two open foredeck hatches and an engine room hatch, and a resident giant groper of around 1.8 m. The Kay Lee is covered as a separate dive record, but most divers combine the two sites.

On the tippers themselves expect golden snapper, fingermark, estuary cod and black jewfish sheltering inside the bins, with trevally, queenfish and baitfish above. The two steel vessels add some height and more cover. Everything is encrusted with sponges, oysters, hydroids and algae, and the growth is richer than you might expect from the turbid water.

As with all Lee Point reefs, visibility is modest and silt lies on every flat surface. Good buoyancy is essential, as is care around fishing line. The shallow depth allows a long, relaxed dive, and the site is close to the Buffalo Creek ramp. It suits Open Water divers with low-visibility experience and a boat, and it offers a very Territory mix of mining hardware and fish life.

The Lee Point reefs lie a few kilometres offshore from Lee Point on Darwin's northern suburbs coast, at the western entrance to Shoal Bay. The nearest launch is the Buffalo Creek boat ramp off Lee Point Road (about 20 minutes' drive from the CBD; trailer parking beside the ramp), which is tidal and can be unusable near low water on big tides – check the tide chart before towing out. From the creek mouth it is a short run north-west to the reefs; boats from Cullen Bay or the harbour ramps come around East Point and up the coast past Nightcliff and Casuarina.

There are no moorings; find the reef on GPS and sounder and drop a shot or grapnel on the structure.

The Lee Point reefs are shallow and close to shore, so they are strongly affected by tide and run-off from Buffalo Creek and Shoal Bay. Dive only on neap tides at slack water – on springs the 6–7 m range drives strong currents and stirs up silt, dropping visibility to near zero. Best in the dry season (May–October) on calm mornings before the south-east trade wind builds; a south-easterly is partly offshore here, but anything over 15 knots makes anchoring on the reef difficult.

In the wet season (December–April) north-westerly monsoon winds make the coast rough, run-off turns the water brown, cyclones are possible and box jellyfish are present.

Descend the shot onto the tipper field at 12–15 m and tour the rows of tipper bodies, then the two steel vessels. Keep a heading so you can return to the line. The Kay Lee (upright 15 m fishing boat, 14 m) lies nearby and is usually done as a separate drop.

Ascend on the shot before the tide runs.

No regular dive operator. Visited occasionally by Darwin Sub Aqua Club members and by private boats; Darwin operators such as Dive Darwin may run a trip on request. The reefs are primarily used by recreational anglers.