Shelly Beach Reef

Reef Dive | Boat access

Depth: 3 m (9.84 ft) to 20 m (66 ft)

Level: Open Water and beyond.

The Shelly Beach Reef boat dive site is about 600 metres north-west of Eagle Rock, and south-east of Levys Point, on Victoria's Shipwreck Coast. It's an abalone and crayfish hunting site offshore from the Thunder Point Coastal Reserve.

Diving at Shelly Beach Reef

Shelly Beach Reef faces south-west into the Southern Ocean and has some excellent reef terrain.

The area is rich in marine life due to the racing currents and rough seas providing plenty of food. The rocky bottom extends up to 2 kilometres out to sea gradually getting deeper.

Location: Warrnambool, Victoria 3280

Ideal Conditions: The Shelly Beach Reef dive site is prone to surge and swell. It's best dived in very good conditions with a low swell with light offshore northerly to easterly winds. See WillyWeather (Shelly Beach) as a guide for the tide times and the height of the tide.

Boat Launching: Shelly Beach Reef and the other reefs in the area are best reached by boat from the Port Fairy, Griffiths Street Boat Ramp. While the Warrnambool (Lady Bay) boat ramp is closer, it's also more problematic.

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.

 

Shelly Beach Reef Location Map

Latitude: 38° 23.477′ S   (38.391283° S / 38° 23′ 28.62″ S)
Longitude: 142° 26.944′ E   (142.449066° E / 142° 26′ 56.64″ E)
Datum: WGS84 | Google Map
Added: 2022-05-25 06:26:13 GMT, Last updated: 2022-05-25 06:28:30 GMT
Source: Sally Watson GPS
Nearest Neighbour: Eagle Rock, Warrnambool, 637 m, bearing 131°, SE
Warrnambool, Shipwreck Coast.
Depth: 3 to 20 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.