Great Barrier Reef · Australia · Wall · Reef
Norman Reef – Wildside Central
A 25 m wall with a very shallow top for the safety stop
Area photo: Toby Hudson · CC BY-SA 3.0
Wildside Central is a wall dive on Norman Reef, one of the outer reefs on the day-boat run from Cairns. The face runs down to 25 metres and the reef above it is very shallow, so the dive drops down the wall and finishes on the flat. It is catalogued as a good site for close-up photography.
Also known as Norman Wildside, Norman Wildside - Central.
Where it is and how deep
16.4374° S, 145.9993° EPublished position for this site.
The dive
The site is a wall feature on Norman Reef, and it drops to 25 metres. Depth is taken early, along the face, and the wall is where the close-up work is: this is catalogued as a good place for macro photography, which means a dive here pays off for moving slowly over a short stretch of reef rather than covering ground.
Coming back is straightforward, because the top of the reef is very shallow. You leave the wall onto that flat and run the safety stop over coral instead of hanging in open water, and it is also where to look for epaulette sharks, which are reported on the shallow reef top here rather than out on the face.
Marine life and season
The sources we used don't single out particular species here.
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fair | Fair | Fair | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Prime | Good | Good | Fair |
Season follows Great Barrier Reef: Dry season (Jun–Nov) brings the clearest water and dwarf minke whales; wet-season runoff and cyclone risk lower visibility and reliability Dec–Mar.
Questions divers ask
How deep is Norman Reef's Wildside Central?+
The wall drops to 25 metres, and the reef immediately above it is very shallow, so the dive can be run deep along the face and finished on the reef top.
Sources
- Norman Wildside - Central — Scubago
- Australia - Great Barrier Reef - Cairns — Dive The World
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