The Banks

Reef Dive | Boat access

Depth: 10 m (33 ft) to 30 m (98 ft)

Level: Advanced Open Water and beyond.

The Banks are located directly off the Hopkins River, Warrnambool on Victoria's Shipwreck Coast. When a big sea is running huge waves can be seen on the horizon caused by the big ocean swells hitting a shallower inshore area known as The Banks.

Diving at The Banks

There are several large drop-offs that fall in two or three steps of 10 metres each from about 10 metres to 20 or 30 metres deep. This makes for great diving but you'll need a good sounder to find the best areas. There is similar dive site out from Stingray Bay.

Location: Warrnambool, Victoria, 3280

Ideal Conditions: Calm conditions and a very flat sea is needed to dive in this area. See WillyWeather (Warrnambool Offshore) as a guide for the tide times and the height of the tide.

The Banks and the reefs in the area are reached by boat from the nearby Warrnambool (Lady Bay) 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.

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.

 

The Banks Location Map

Latitude: 38° 25.648′ S   (38.427467° S / 38° 25′ 38.88″ S)
Longitude: 142° 29.440′ E   (142.490667° E / 142° 29′ 26.4″ E)
Datum: WGS84 | Google Map
Added: 2021-06-06 11:59:21 GMT, Last updated: 2022-05-23 19:22:32 GMT
Source: GPS
Nearest Neighbour: Hopkins Reef, 2,599 m, bearing 33°, NNE
Warrnambool, Shipwreck Coast.
Depth: 10 to 30 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.