Kanowna Island, Seal Colony

Reef Dive | Boat access

Play With The Seals!

Kanowna Island, Seal Colony
© Phil Watson

Depth: 2 m (6.56 ft) to 50 m (164 ft)

Level: Advanced Open Water and beyond.

The Kanowna Island, Seal Colony dive site is on the southern side of Kanowna Island and it's all about seeing the Australian Fur Seals found here. There are so many playful and curious that diving with the seals becomes an exciting and thrilling experience as they speed past and play with you.

Kanowna Island is part of the Anser Group of islands at Wilsons Promontory, Victoria, Australia. It's an active, protected Australian Fur Seal colony and lies within the Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park.

Kanowna Island is named after the SS Kanowna, once a hospital ship for wounded soldiers from Gallipoli, which sank off Wilsons Promontory after striking nearby Skull Rock in 1929.

Diving the Kanowna Island, Seal Colony

This dive site is fairly well sheltered from the prevailing westerly winds. The rocks in the area form crevices and gullies which are interesting to explore if you can take your attention away from the seals. The rocks feature a very thick covering of various kelps.

Maximum depth in the rocky area is about 25 metres, but drops off to 50 metres quite close by.

Kanowna Island is an important breeding site for a significant colony of over 9,000 Australian Fur Seals, and a small number of New Zealand Fur Seals, which feed in Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park and surrounding waters. These species were once more widely distributed around the Prom and are still recovering from near local extinction as a result of the sealing industry of the 1800s. This dive site is the main seal colony on the island.

Motorised and non-motorised vessels including sea kayaks are prohibited from within 200 metres of Kanowna Island during the breeding season from November to January (inclusive), and within 50 metres of the island at other times of the year.

Scuba divers diving from boats anchored outside the seasonal exclusion zones around Kanowna Island may approach closer to these islands provided that they are underwater and observe any other restrictions applying to approaching marine mammals.

See also the nearby Kanowna Island, Seal School dive site.

Ideal Conditions: This Kanowna Island, Seal Colony dive site is best dived with calm seas, no swell and no wind. Light offshore north-westerly to south-westerly winds may be acceptable. See WillyWeather (Kanowna Island) as a guide for the tide times and the height of the tide.

Bass Strait Warning: Always keep an eye on sea conditions throughout any shore or boat dive in Bass Strait on Victoria's coastline. Please read the warnings on the web page diving-in-bass-strait before diving or snorkelling this site.

Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park

This site lies in Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park, Victoria's largest marine sanctuary. There is a huge diversity of marine life within the waters at the Prom. Brilliantly coloured fish are present such as the Red Velvetfish, Eastern Blue Groper and Wrasse as well as Leafy Seadragons and schools of Barber Perch. Intertidal molluscs such as limpets and snails, as well as anemones, brittlestars and seastars, are also common within the waters.

Divers will experience fascinating sponge gardens which consist of a techni-coloured assemblage of sponges, sea tulips, sea whips, lace corals and seafans. Octopus emerge at night whilst sharks and rays roam the sandy areas.

The offshore islands support many colonies of fur seals and oceanic birds such as Little Penguins, Fairy Prions, Silver Gulls and Pacific Gulls.

You are not permitted to carry a spear gun while snorkelling or scuba diving in Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park.

Boon Wurrung / Bunurong country

Traditional Owners — This dive site is in the traditional Country of the Boon Wurrung / Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation. This truly ancient Country includes parts of Port Phillip, from the Werribee River in the north-west, down to Wilson's Promontory in the south-east, including the Mornington Peninsula, French Island and Phillip Island, plus Western Port. We wish to acknowledge the Boon Wurrung 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.

Kanowna Island, Seal Colony Location Map

Latitude: 39° 9.262′ S (39.154371° S / 39° 9′ 15.74″ S)
Longitude: 146° 18.793′ E (146.313213° E / 146° 18′ 47.57″ E)
Datum: WGS84 | Google Map
Added: 2022-04-22 16:12:35 GMT, Last updated: 2022-04-23 17:47:05 GMT
Source: Google Earth
Nearest Neighbour: Kanowna Island, South East, 420 m, bearing 150°, SSE
Wilsons Promontory Marine National Park.
Kanowna Island, Bass Strait.
Depth: 2 to 50 m.

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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.