SOM Farm Reef

Reef Dive | Boat access

SOM Farm Reef
© Western Abalone Divers Association

Depth: 5 m (16 ft) to 18 m (59 ft)

Level: Open Water and beyond.

SOM Farm Reef is a boat diving site which lies offshore from the Southern Ocean Mariculture (SOM) abalone farm west of Port Fairy on Victoria's Discovery Coast. It's a good location to get a taste of the boulder shore and reef complexes found between Port Fairy to the east and The Crags to the west.

Diving at SOM Farm Reef

The depth at the SOM Farm Reef dive site ranges from 5 to 18 metres and the site features plenty of interesting habitat for the usual inhabitants.

Take your catch bag if you're hunting Black-lipped Abalone or Southern Rock Lobster (aka Crayfish).

Location: Port Fairy, Victoria 3284

Ideal Conditions: This boat dive site is prone to surge and swell and is best dived in very good conditions with a low swell with light north-westerly to north-easterly winds. See WillyWeather (Little River Beach) as a guide for the tide times and the height of the tide.

Boat Launching: SOM Farm Reef is reached by boat heading out from the Port Fairy, Griffiths Street Boat Ramp.

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.

Crayfish Dive Site | © Ian Scholey

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.

Eastern Maar country

Traditional Owners — This dive site is in the traditional Country of the Eastern Maar people of south-western Victoria between the Shaw and Eumerella Rivers and from Yambuk in the south to beyond Lake Linlithgow in the north. This truly ancient Country extends as far north as Ararat and encompasses the coastal townships of Port Fairy in the west, Warrnambool, Peterborough, Port Campbell, Apollo Bay, Lorne, and Airies Inlet in the east, including the Great Ocean Road area. It also stretches 100 metres out to sea from low tide and therefore includes the iconic Twelve Apostles. "Eastern Maar" is a name adopted by the people who identify as Maar, Eastern Gunditjmara, Tjap Wurrung, Peek Whurrong, Kirrae Whurrung, Kuurn Kopan Noot and/or Yarro waetch (Tooram Tribe) amongst others. We wish to acknowledge the Eastern Maar as Traditional Owners. We pay respect to their Ancestors and their Elders, past, present and emerging.

 

SOM Farm Reef Location Map

Latitude: 38° 23.708′ S   (38.395132° S / 38° 23′ 42.48″ S)
Longitude: 142° 10.683′ E   (142.178044° E / 142° 10′ 40.96″ E)
Datum: WGS84 | Google Map
Added: 2021-07-12 18:38:26 GMT, Last updated: 2022-05-24 18:39:03 GMT
Source: Google Earth
Nearest Neighbour: Taylors Beach, 400 m, bearing 311°, NW
Port Fairy, Discovery Coast.
Depth: 5 to 18 m.

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.