Pivot Beach

Reef Dive | Shore access

Pivot Beach, Portland
© Google Street View

Depth: 1 m (3.28 ft) to 8 m (26 ft)

Level: Open Water and beyond.

Pivot Beach is an artificial beach located to the south-east of Portland, on Victoria's Discovery Coast. The beach is off Madeira Packet Road, at the southern end of the Incitec Pivot Fertilisers factory.

Pivot Beach was purposefully created following the Portland Harbour construction, to trap sand that was infilling the harbour. It's located inside a south facing seawall that traps the sand between the wall and the limestone bluffs of Observatory Point. When the beach is full, sand is trucked from here to Nuns Beach on the other side of the harbour. The beach itself is 80 metres long, faces south-east and receives waves averaging 0.5 to 1 metre. These break over a shallow, attached bar. A permanent rip runs out against the seawall and there are rocks off either side of the beach. A road runs down the bluffs to the seawall where there is an informal car park and beach boat launching area.

Diving and Snorkelling at Pivot Beach

Pivot Beach has left and right hand reefs at each end of the beach. There are often large amounts of kelp to be be found in the shallows. If you can get through the kelp the dive is enjoyable and Abalone and Crayfish can be found. There is a variety of growth and fish life.

Pivot Beach Parking
© Google Street View

Location: Maderia Packet Road, Portland, Victoria 3305

Parking: There is a parking area off Maderia Packet Road, Portland, just north of the intersection with George Street. Before gearing up check out the water. If you see lots of white water, head on home.

Safety First: This area is frequented by boats, so please make sure you display your dive flag in this area.

Entry/exit: You enter and exit the water from Pivot Beach.

Ideal Conditions: Pivot Beach faces south-east and is sheltered from offshore south-westerly to north-westerly winds. Moderate to strong onshore northerly to south-easterly winds are not favourable at this location. Best dived with low swell for the best visibility.

See WillyWeather (Blacknose Point) as a guide for the tide times and the height of the tide.

Abalone Dive Site
© Mark Norman, Museum Victoria

Divers have the opportunity to catch Abalone at this dive site. Remember your catch bag, legal abalone tool, current Victorian Recreational Fishing Licence, and abalone measure. Please abide by all current fishing regulations if you intend to catch abalone.

See article-catching-abalone for practical abalone hunting advice from The Scuba Doctor, plus melbourne-abalone-dives for a list of other Abalone dive sites near Melbourne.

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.

Gunditjmara country

Traditional Owners — This dive site is in the traditional Country of the Gunditjmara people of far south-western Victoria which continues over the state border into a small part of south-east South Australia and is bordered by the Glenelg River to the west and the Wannon River in the north. This truly ancient Country extends 100 metres out to sea from low tide and also includes Deen Maar (aka Lady Julia Percy Island) where the Gunditjmara believe the spirits of their dead travel to wait to be reborn. We wish to acknowledge the Gunditjmara as Traditional Owners. We pay respect to their Ancestors and their Elders, past, present and emerging.

Pivot Beach Location Map

Latitude: 38° 21.701′ S (38.361689° S / 38° 21′ 42.08″ S)
Longitude: 141° 37.531′ E (141.625516° E / 141° 37′ 31.86″ E)
Datum: WGS84 | Google Map | Get directions
Added: 2022-05-17 10:47:58 GMT, Last updated: 2022-05-24 07:35:27 GMT
Source: Google Earth
Nearest Neighbour: Portland Bay Reef, 1,852 m, bearing 5°, N
Portland, Discovery Coast.
Depth: 1 to 8 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.