Diving is an equipment intensive sport and as such a Dive Bag is an excellent accessory that allows you keep all your dive gear together while transporting it around. The Scuba Doctor dive shop is Australia's largest scuba dive retailer and mail order supplier of Scuba Diving, Freediving, Spearfishing and Snorkeling gear bags.
Drift Dive | Boat access
Depth: 6 m (20 ft) to 32 m (105 ft)
Level: Advanced Open Water
Boarfish Reef Drift is a drift dive over the famous Boarfish Reef area, offshore from Shortland Bluff in Port Phillip. A Boarfish Reef Drift dive is best done from the beginning of a Slack Water Flood or Slack Water Ebb tidal flow.
Drift diving in Port Philip is a little different to drift diving in other areas because of strong currents and the amount of boat traffic. Typically divers are split into separate groups, depending on numbers, with each group given a long length of rope, around 50 metres long, with a buoy and dive flag attached to one end. The idea is to descend as a group spaced along the line keeping parallel to the current. It sounds tricky but it isn't. This is really the easiest form of diving as very little kicking is required or navigation — just go with the flow! Your air supply lasts longer and the underwater terrain is always changing.
Dive charter boats regularly schedule Boarfish Reef Drift dives, heading out from Portsea and Queenscliff. Private dive boats usually launch at the Sorrento Boat Ramp or the Queenscliff Boat Ramp.
The Rip & Tides Warning: Always keep an eye on sea conditions throughout any shore or boat dive within "The Rip" (aka "The Heads"). This is a dangerous stretch of water, where Bass Straight meets Port Phillip, which has claimed many ships and lives. Please read the warnings on the web page diving-the-rip before diving or snorkelling this site.
Divers have the opportunity to catch Southern Rock Lobster (aka Crayfish) at this dive site. Remember your catch bag, current Victorian Recreational Fishing Licence, rock lobster measure, and cray tags. Once you get back to the dive boat, or shore, make sure you clip the tail and tag your Crayfish as per Fisheries requirements. Please abide by all current fishing regulations if you intend to catch crays. See article-catching-crayfish for practical cray hunting advice from The Scuba Doctor, plus melbourne-cray-dives for a list of other crayfish dive sites near Melbourne. For tips on cooking your Crays, please see article-cooking-crayfish.
Traditional Owners — This dive site is in the traditional Country of the Wathaurong (Wadda-Warrung) people of the Kulin Nation. This truly ancient Country includes the coastline of Port Phillip, from the Werribee River in the north-east, the Bellarine Peninsula, and down to Cape Otway in the south-west. We wish to acknowledge the Wathaurong as Traditional Owners. We pay respect to their Ancestors and their Elders, past, present and emerging. We acknowledge Bunjil the Creator Spirit of this beautiful land, who travels as an eagle, and Waarn, who protects the waterways and travels as a crow, and thank them for continuing to watch over this Country today and beyond.
Boarfish Reef Drift Location Map
Latitude: 38° 16.915′ S (38.281917° S / 38° 16′ 54.9″ S)
Longitude: 144° 39.275′ E (144.654583° E / 144° 39′ 16.5″ E)
Datum: WGS84 |
Google Map
Added: 2012-07-22 09:00:00 GMT, Last updated: 2022-04-06 19:45:36 GMT
Source: GPS
Nearest Neighbour: Shortland Bluff Bommie, 102 m, bearing 49°, NE
Depth: 6 to 32 m.
Dive only on: SWF, SWE.
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DISCLAIMER: No claim is made by The Scuba Doctor as to the accuracy of the dive site coordinates listed here. Should anyone decide to use these GPS marks to locate and dive on a site, they do so entirely at their own risk. Always verify against other sources.
The marks come from numerous sources including commercial operators, independent dive clubs, reference works, and active divers. Some are known to be accurate, while others may not be. Some GPS marks may even have come from maps using the AGD66 datum, and thus may need be converted to the WGS84 datum. To distinguish between the possible accuracy of the dive site marks, we've tried to give each mark a source of GPS, Google Earth, or unknown.
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