Turners Beach and the long rock training walls that guide the Clarence River out to sea at Yamba and Iluka provide the easiest, most weather-independent dive on this stretch of coast — a genuine shore dive that can be attempted even when the ocean swell has shut down every offshore trip out of Yamba. The training walls, built to stabilise the river mouth for shipping, create a sheltered, sand-and-rubble habitat quite different from the exposed rock reefs further offshore, and the site is used as much for training and check-out dives as for recreational diving. As with comparable river-mouth shore dives further north at Tweed Heads and Ballina, the appeal here is the critter life that the Clarence River's flow concentrates along the walls: rays and flathead work the sand, moray eels and octopus occupy cracks in the rock, and juvenile tropical fish recruit into the sheltered water through summer and autumn on the back of the East Australian Current, turning up species well south of their usual tropical range.

Visibility is modest, typically 4 to 10 m, and highly dependent on how recently the Clarence has flooded, given the size and reach of its catchment inland. The defining rule for diving here is the tide: enter only on the last of the incoming tide or at high slack, since the ebb tide pushes a genuine current out through the training walls that is unsuitable for casual diving. Boat traffic using the main channel should also be respected, particularly near the harbour entrance itself.

For visiting divers based in Yamba waiting on a weather window for the offshore reefs or the Solitary Islands further north, or for anyone wanting a simple, low-cost, no-boat-required dive, Turners Beach and the training walls are a reliable fallback that rewards patient, torch-assisted searching over dramatic scenery.

Park at Turners Beach car park in Yamba (accessed off Wooli Street/Convent Beach Road) and walk a short distance to the beach and adjacent rock breakwall, or use the equivalent walls on the Iluka side of the river. Gear up at the car and carry equipment a short distance over sand or rock; enter on the last of the incoming tide or at high slack for the calmest water.

Current here is driven by the Clarence River's tidal flow rather than ocean swell, so time entries to the last of the incoming tide or high slack; the outgoing tide pushes a strong flow out through the training walls. The site is sheltered from most ocean swell by the walls themselves, making it usable even on days too rough for the offshore reefs, though heavy rain in the Clarence catchment browns the water for several days afterwards.

Enter at high slack tide and work along the base of the breakwall or the sandy beach edge at 2-8 m, looking for rays, flathead and juvenile tropical fish among the rubble, and exit before the tide turns.

No boat required; Yamba Dive occasionally uses this as a training and check-out dive site for students.