Sites that are properly documented, with depths, entries and conditions confirmed by several sources, but that see only occasional charters or club trips. No crowds, no queues on the mooring, and often the best diving in their region.
Updated daily from the directory. 20 sites listed.
1. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Six Fathom Reef (Port Hacking)
Sheltered bad-weather reef at the mouth of Port Hacking with stepped walls and huge schools of pomfret and bullseyes.
Our takeSydney's bad-weather reef: sheltered at the mouth of Port Hacking, stepped walls and enormous schools of pomfret and bullseyes in 27 m. Charters use it as a fallback; it deserves to be a destination.
2. Lord Howe Island · NSW
Balls Pyramid – Observatory Rock
Drift through 5–8 m rock stacks and caves packed with lobsters, with Galapagos sharks circling on the safety stop and a chance of the rare Ballina angelfish.
Our takeEveryone who dives Lord Howe wants Balls Pyramid; most only get one dive there because of the weather. Observatory Rock, with its caves of lobsters and Galapagos sharks on the safety stop, is the one to ask for.
3. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Pizza Reef (Jibbon)
The original 'fast-food' reef: a round figure-8 reef with overhangs all round, a central gully, colourful gorgonians and humpback whale bones.
Our takeA round reef with overhangs all the way around and whale bones in the central gully, off Jibbon in the Royal National Park. Sydney's southern charters know it; the northern ones rarely go.
4. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
South Maroubra
Belbowrie wreckage and old bottles among a boulder maze with more than fifty fish species, including Sydney's biggest dusky flathead.
5. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Maccas Reef (Jibbon)
Rated by McFadyen among his best-ever Sydney dives: a multi-directional wall covered in huge sponges with prolific schooling fish and seals.
6. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Windy Point (Cronulla)
Convoluted kelp reef with swim-throughs and a cave, plenty of sea dragons and rays, and an optional drift to Oak Park.
7. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Voodoo (Kurnell)
Some of Sydney's densest gorgonian and sea-whip growth on a reef sloping to 28 m, with 20 m+ visibility most days.
8. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Barrens Hut (Royal National Park)
Southern Sydney's classic wall dive: a life-covered drop-off to 28 m with The Cave, a swim-through Tunnel and friendly blue gropers.
9. Sydney Harbour · NSW
Parsley Bay
Seahorses on the wharf piles, eels in the mooring blocks and a sunken crane in a silty Vaucluse inlet under a suspension bridge – an eastern-suburbs night dive with phosphorescence.
10. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Wattamolla Point (Royal National Park)
One of the most colourful sponge gardens south of Sydney, with thousands of silver sweep and nannygai off Wattamolla's northern headland.
11. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Marley Point North (Royal National Park)
Shallow swim-throughs and gullies over a rock platform plus a fishy sand edge, on calm winter westerlies.
12. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Tumbledowns (Royal National Park)
Canyons, swim-throughs and huge boulders just south of Barrens Hut, with dozens of Port Jackson sharks and fiddler rays in the cooler months.
13. Lord Howe Island · NSW
Balls Pyramid – South East Rock
Easy-profile Balls Pyramid dive on a boulder and ledge shelf with lobster-filled overhangs and plate coral – long bottom times in 30 m+ visibility.
14. Narooma & Montague Island · NSW
SS Lady Darling
An intact stern with upright engine and boiler, covered in jewel anemones – one of the best wreck dives in NSW.
15. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Yellow Rock (Malabar)
A 15 m crack full of dumped cars, caves and swim-throughs, and a sponge-covered 24 m wall beneath Australia's deadliest rock-fishing ledge.
16. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
The Gullies / Underwater Wilderness
A 3–5 m wide north–south gully, swim-throughs and 'The Marble' – a giant boulder that rolls in its rock cauldron – with hundreds of Port Jackson sharks in late winter.
17. Wollongong & Kiama · NSW
Pig Island – South East
Dense sponge, gorgonian and lace-coral growth on a small wall with huge schools of pomfret, nannygai and sweep.
18. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Cape Banks / Cruwee Cove
Gullies 30 m long and six-plus cave systems on the seaward side of Botany Bay's northern head – 'the equal of any dive site in Sydney' per McFadyen.
19. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
Osborn Shoal (Cronulla)
Cronulla's signature boat dive: a flat kelp reef with drop-offs, an 18 m cave, friendly gropers and sea dragons, minutes from Port Hacking.
20. Sydney South & Botany Bay · NSW
The Wanderers (Bate Bay)
An immense deep reef of walls, swim-throughs and sea-whip gardens 5 km off Cronulla, named for its wandering anemones.
The guide
How we found these
This list is the inverse of the popularity rankings. It takes sites that are well documented and have been given a positive assessment in the directory, then keeps only the ones recorded as rarely or occasionally dived. In other words: sites that people who know them rate highly, that hardly anyone else visits. Sites with thin documentation are excluded, so a place is not here just because nobody has written about it.
The result skews to Victoria and southern New South Wales, where there are hundreds of shore-accessible reefs and a diving population that concentrates on a dozen famous piers and walls. It also picks up the second-choice sites of the big tropical operators: the reefs they use when the headline site is blown out.
Why these sites stay quiet
Usually one of four reasons. Access is awkward (a swim, a scramble, a boat launch rather than a charter). The site is a fallback in an operator's schedule and never gets top billing. There is a more famous site next door that soaks up the visitors. Or the conditions window is narrow and the site only works on a wind direction that keeps most people at home. None of those are reasons not to dive them; all of them are reasons to check the conditions section on the site page and talk to the local shop first.
Diving quiet sites well
Quiet sites are not maintained sites. There may be no mooring, no current information from a morning boat, no one else on the surface. Dive them with a buddy who has done them, or with the local club, carry a surface marker, and leave a plan ashore. Several are in sanctuary zones or marine national parks where nothing may be taken; that is exactly why the life is so good.
Editorial last reviewed September 2026. The list itself is regenerated from the directory daily.
Frequently asked questions
How do I dive a rarely dived site?
Ask the nearest dive centre listed on the site page whether they will run it on request or as a club trip, or find a local club. Many need a private boat and settled weather.
More rankings
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