Yellow Rock is the infamous rock-fishing ledge at the seaward corner of the Long Bay Rifle Range, and the reef below it is a very good dive that almost nobody does. From the platform the bottom drops to 10 m, then to a shelf at 17–20 m, then to 23 m and gradually down to 26 m, mostly small rocks and sand with a fair amount of kelp. The feature everyone remembers is a large crack running into the rock platform, about 15 m deep at its mouth and 10 m at its head, into which decades ago people pushed cars off the cliff: engines, whole rear axles, wheels and body panels are still wedged in it, now encrusted with growth.

Around the anchorage there are caves and swim-throughs in the boulders, and out to seaward a north–south wall with its top at 20 m and base at about 24 m, undercut with small overhangs and covered in sea squirts, gorgonians and sponges. Fish life is strong: eastern rock blackfish and luderick in the shallows, schools of seapike, yellowtail, one-spot pullers and silver sweep over the reef, black reef leatherjackets, eastern blue devilfish under the ledges, wobbegongs and black rays, and Port Jackson sharks in numbers in August. Weedy seadragons are reliable in the kelp from July to December.

The site was first dived by McFadyen in 1997 as a drift south to the MV Malabar wreck and revisited in 2004; he rates it a very good site worth many dives. Its history is inseparable from the 1990 outfall: before that the effluent plume made this whole coast unusable and the platform was famous only for drownings. Today it is a private-boat dive from Botany Bay for advanced divers on a calm day, and a sobering one when you look up at the ledge.

Private boat only. From Botany Bay travel about 4.3 km north from the heads past Little Bay and Long Bay to the south-eastern corner of the rifle range; Yellow Rock is the low yellow-brown platform at the corner. Anchor about 50 m north of the platform in 17–20 m.

Roughly 20 minutes from the Kyeemagh ramp. It can also be run as a drift south to the MV Malabar wreck inside Long Bay. No charters.

Needs relatively calm seas and a north-easterly, easterly or westerly wind – not a southerly, which drives swell straight onto the shelf. Yellow Rock earned its reputation as the most dangerous rock-fishing location in Australia (around 100 deaths) because swell surges over the low platform without warning, and that same energy is felt in the 10–15 m crack; keep to the deeper wall if there is any swell at all. Water quality changed overnight when the Malabar deepwater outfall opened on 22 September 1990 and the reef recovered within a year.

Visibility 10–20 m in normal conditions.

Descend and head north along the 22 m contour for about 10 minutes, ascend into the shallows and come back south to the big crack, explore the caves and swim-throughs around the anchorage, then head out east to the 20–24 m wall with its small overhangs before returning to the line.

No regular charter – private boat or dive-club (St George Scuba Club) only