Diving in Sydney

Above: Sydney harbour. Photo credit: Marcin – stock.adobe.com

Introduction

Located on the South-West corner of the Pacific, Australia’s most famous city is known for its opera house and golden beaches, drawing tourists and surfers alike. When it comes to scuba diving though, international visitors who transit through Sydney tend keep their fins dry, for they’re only planning to use them at the Great Barrier Reef, missing out on the fantastic diving that can be had right in town. To be fair, the prospect of diving in a city of 5 million inhabitants, with relatively cold water and limited visibility doesn’t sound too enticing… unless you know better. Luckily, you have found this article 😀

I have been living and diving in Sydney almost every week for the past 7 years, and I am still in love with our local dive sites. Read further to know what makes Sydney diving so special, and why it should be on every underwater photographer’s bucket list. 

It’s in the water

Between the Royal National Park in the South, and the Northern Beaches suburbs, no less than three river estuaries meet the South Pacific Ocean, each bringing nutrients that feed a diverse marine life. In and between these, a mix of sandy beaches and dramatic sandstone cliffs shape the water edge, creating interesting underwater sceneries and providing habitat for a range of species. Flowing from the Tropical North, the East Australian Current (EAC) brings warmer water, which in turns creates upwelling along the Sydney coast. This offers extra fuel to the marine food chain, as deepwater nutrients are brought close to the surface. 

The afore-mentioned cliffs do more than providing scenic vistas, they also protect a range of dive sites from ocean swells. Aside from a handful of storms per year, this means there are always a few locations safe to dive. More than 30 dive sites are accessible from shore in good weather, twice as many from a boat, including several wrecks in the 40 to 50 meters (130-160ft) depth range. There are so many options, and I often struggle deciding on where to dive!

Temperature and Visibility

Despite its latitude down South, Sydney’s waters are relatively warm, ranging from 12-15 °C (53-61 °F) in winter, to 21-24 °C (70-75 °F) in Summer. Again this is a perk of having the East Australian Current (EAC) flowing southward, all the way from Tropical Queensland, making the water warmer than one would expect. A thick wetsuit would be adequate most of the year, but I recommend a drysuit to enjoy the colder months, especially if you’re an underwater photographer and you like going slow. Besides, why not enjoy extended bottom times, since there are so many shore-diving options.

Visibility varies with the dive sites and the seasons, with 12-15 meters (40-50 ft) considered excellent, 8-12 meters (26-39 ft) pretty good, and 3 to 7 meters (10-23 ft) being common. Sites located within the bays and river estuaries to have less visibility, whereas outer dive sites occasionally get over 15 meters (50 ft) of visibility. Overall, the best visibility tends to come during the Australian Winter, with swell direction & swell height/frequency and rain having an impact all year round. 

If you are an underwater photographer considering to visit Sydney, you’ll have to pay attention to the position of your strobes, to avoid getting backscatter all across your photos. If you need help with that, check our Lighting course. We also have recorded webinars on using a Snoot and Low-Visibility Shooting & Editing.

A unique mix of marine life

Besides warmth, the EAC (East Australian Current) also carries down tropical species from the Great Barrier Reef. Remember the underwater highway in Finding Nemo? That’s the EAC for you, except that in reality, tropical fish don’t travel as fully-formed individuals, but in a larval stage. Some of them do end-up in Sydney and grow until the water gets too cold for them, which sees them vanish. This explains how we occasionally see longfin bannerfish, common lionfish and even ornate ghost pipefish right in Sydney’s waters! We also have tropical-sounding species which survive all-year-round, such as hairy frogfish (we call them “hairy anglerfish” down here), painted frogfish and porcupinefish. 

However, you can find the above species in various coral reefs across the world, so I’d recommend you focus your photography on the animals which only live in the Southern half of Australia, such as weedy seadragons, white’s seahorses, southern maori wrasses, southern pygmy leatherjackets, eastern blue devils, red indian fish, green moray, eastern smooth boxfish and the donut nudibranch (nembrotha rosannulata), to name a few.

We also have a couple of species found only in and around Sydney, namely the Sydney pygmy pipehorse (idiotropiscis lumnitzeri) and the red-fingered anglerfish (porophryne erythrodactylus). 

If you’re a wide-angle shooter, our friendly blue gropers who will most likely find you, and come up-close in hope for a feed (please refrain). You might also encounter giant cuttlefish, elegant fiddler rays (also called banjo rays, due to their guitar-shape) and awe-inspiring “bull rays” (smooth stingrays) which can be 2 meters wide (6.6 ft), 4m (13 ft) long and weigh over 300kg (660 lbs). 

What about sharks? If you though that Raja Ampat’s 1.8m (6 ft) long tasselled wobbegongs were cool, check-out our gulf wobbegongs (orectolobus halei), which are relatively common and can be nearly 3 meters (10 ft) long, just don’t get too close. We also have 2 species of bull-head sharks whose groin give them a unique look: the port-jackson shark and crested-horn shark. Up next, our critically-endangered grey nurse shark can be seen most of the year on boat dives, it looks very similar to the sand tiger shark (US) and ragged-tooth shark (South Africa), but is a distinct population.  This blog article would be too long if I covered every species I photographed in Sydney, consider it an appetizer, and come explore yourself!

The bigger picture

As mentioned in introduction, Australia is best known amongst divers for its iconic Great Barrier Reef, but the Southern half of the continent features a network of inter-connected temperate reefs, with their own marine life quite different from that of the tropical north. A few years ago, these reefs started to be referred to – collectively – as the Great Southern Reef, a nod to its famous neighbour and a recognition for its unique biodiversity. The Great Southern Reef is a pretty big place (71,000 km2 / 27,000 sq mi), but you can get a glimpse of what it has to offer, by submerging yourself in Sydney’s waters. 

Dive Profiles

In terms of dive profiles, Sydney’s shore dives sit between 3 and 25 meters (10-80 ft) depth, most of the diving being shallower than 18 meters (60 ft), while boat dives are found in any depths, with several wrecks in the 40-50 meters (130-160ft) range. All-in-one, unless you’re aiming for one of the wrecks, most of Sydney’s interesting reef dives are shallower than 25 meters (80 ft), with some sponge gardens flourishing as shallow as 8 meters (25 ft), which makes Sydney diving accessible to divers of all experience levels. 

Planning your dives in Sydney

With a few exceptions, most of the dive sites and the boat ramps aren’t accessible easily by public transport, and renting a car will give you the flexibility you need to enjoy Sydney diving. The local dive shops can loan you equipment and provide guided dives. Some of them do free guiding on shore dives, and all offer double-tank boat dives. 

There are a few very useful resources to help plan your trip:

• Michael McFadyen’s website: Michael is a well known figure in the Sydne diving community. For over 20 years, his website has provided the most complete inventory of Sydney dive sites descriptions, with tips on how to dive them. 
• Viz on Web: local diver Marco Bordieri has spent dozens of hours navigating some of Sydney’s best dive sites with his underwater scooter and produced detailed underwater maps which he makes available for free on this website.
• Sydney Viz Group: a Facebook group where local divers share observations from their latest dive, including how the visibility and temperature was, as well as the most notable species they saw. 

If you want to brush-up your underwater photography skills to take great photos in temperate visibility, consider joining The Underwater Club. I am also available to support members on our Club forums.

Conclusion

Seven years ago when I researched in which Australian city to relocate with my family, Sydney seemed to tick a lot of our (diving) boxes, whilst being a very liveable metropolis on its own, with ample job opportunities for both my wife and myself (back in the days when I had a corporate career). In truth, it seemed a little too good to be true, but we took a leap of faith and settled down there. Seven years later, I am really glad we did, for I can’t seem to grow tried of diving in this fantastic city. 

I hope this article gave you a good overview of what Sydney has to offer for scuba divers. Feel free to post a comment below if you have questions. If you feel that article could help others, share it around!

NB: I will soon write another article to share my top 5 Sydney shore-diving sites. If you haven’t yet, subscribe to our mailing-list to be notified.

About the author

Nicolas Remy is an Australia-based pro shooter and founder of online underwater photography school and photo club, The Underwater Club, with members in 18 countries. He serves as an ambassador for Nauticam and Mares, his work have been widely published in print and digital media, and his images have won over 40 international photo awards. To see more images by Nicolas and his wife Léna, visit their website, www.nicolaslenaremy.com.