Situated in the Boston Bay area of south Australia, Port Lincoln is a popular spot for wreck diving and cage diving with white pointer sharks. But its waters offer a wide variety of other marine life; including squid, trevally, salmon, mullet, and yellowfin whiting, just to name a few.
While the bay’s floor is mostly sandy and featureless, good diving spots can be found in the Cape Donnington and Donnington Island areas. Numerous shipwrecks are found along the area’s rugged coastline, particularly in the Cape Catastrophe area. The offshore islands of the Port Lincoln area provide safe breeding grounds for a variety of marine mammals and seabirds, including the rare Australian sea lion and New Zealand fur seal.
If you are ready for some underwater action, start with one of the following dive sites. They give you a sampling of the diverse diving experiences that await you in the Port Lincoln area.
Dangerous Reef
If you’re looking for an adrenaline rush before moving on to more relaxed underwater sightseeing, check out the shark cages at Dangerous Reef. For over 30 years, visitors have come to the reef to commune with the area’s great white sharks from the safe confines of an underwater viewing platform. The reef, also known as Neptune Island, has diving depths of 10-15 meters, and is best dived from April to September.
Hopkins Island
If you’d like to dive with sea lions rather than sharks, try the shallower waters around Hopkins Island. These friendly, furry creatures are particularly numerous in the Seal Cove area of the island, where they like to sun themselves on large stone slabs on the beach. In addition to the frisky seals, which will swim with you or watch you from the sea bottom, you’ll find a huge pinnacle with innumerable caves and swim-throughs. Breathtaking displays of sponges and gorgonians line the caves’ interiors, where you’ll spot bullseyes, old wives, blue devilfish and morwong. Maximum depth is just 12 meters.
Port Lincoln Town Jetty
Right in the center of Port Lincoln, you’ll find the town jetty, an excellent place for an enjoyable shore dive—just jump on in! In the jetty area, you’ll find that many of the pylons are covered with an assortment of sponges, ascidians, and anemones. Marine life is plentiful, including spider and hermit crabs, sea stars, blennies, nudibranchs, sea cucumbers, shrimp, yellowtail, leatherjackets, wrasse, goatfish, globefish, and rock lobsters. In-the-know scuba divers will tell you that you can usually spot some of the most active sea life right around a jetty or pier, and Port Lincoln is no exception. Maximum depth here is an easy 4 meters – a great dive, day or night!
Degei Shipwreck
One of numerous shipwrecks in the area, the Degei lies in 11 meters of water on Donnington Island’s western site. A small fishing boat built in 1940; the Degei was wrecked in 1974. It was 28 meters long and weighed 205 tons. It is now home to many invertebrates, as well as schools of leatherjackets, scorpion fish, boarfish, and cuttlefish.
Cape Wiles
A fantastic sheltered lagoon, this spot is only accessible by boat. Its diving depths vary from 6 to 15 meters. You’ll find several small caves here, with lots of invertebrates sheltered here. On the reef itself are morwong, rock lobsters, blue gropers, cuttlefish, harlequin fish, blue devilfish, and perch.
From sleek, well-fed sharks to mischievous sea lions, and from leisurely wreck tours to jumping off the town pier, so to speak, the Port Lincoln area has something for everyone’s diving pleasure. You’ll find that booking a trip here is simple, as there are many dive operators to choose from, all of which will be happy to get you to the sites you want to dive most.