Great Barrier Reef · Australia · Wall · Reef
Saxon Reef – Magic Wall
Small caves in a 15 m wall holding eels and octopus
Area photo: Toby Hudson · CC BY-SA 3.0
Magic Wall is a shallow wall on Saxon Reef, an outer-reef stop on the day-boat run from Cairns. The face bottoms out at about 15 metres, with scattered bommies standing in the deeper sand beyond its foot and a run of small caves cut into the rock that hold eels and octopus. It is rated for beginners upward.
Where it is and how deep
16.4618° S, 145.9837° EPublished position for this site.
The dive
The wall here is a shallow one, about 15 metres at its foot, so the dive is spent working along a face rather than descending to it. What repays attention is the rock itself: it is cut with small caves, and those holes are where the eels and octopus sit. Take them one at a time and slowly, with a light angled in rather than swept across the opening.
Out beyond the base, scattered bommies stand in the deeper sand and give a second line to follow on the way back, each one a small piece of reef in the open. Because nothing on the site is deep, gas rather than no-decompression time sets the length of the dive, and the shallow top of the wall is where it ends. The site is recommended for beginners through to advanced divers.
Marine life and season
- Octopus & cuttlefish
| 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
Is Magic Wall suitable for beginners?+
Yes. Saxon Reef's Magic Wall is recommended for beginners through to advanced divers, and the wall only reaches about 15 metres, so the profile stays shallow throughout.
Sources
- Saxon Reef Magic Wall — Scubago
- Australia - Great Barrier Reef - Cairns — Dive The World
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