Mooloolaba

Everything here runs off a day boat from Mooloolaba Harbour. Two centres work the town, Sunreef with roots back to 1976 and Scuba World since 1979, and Scuba World alone lists up to fifteen sites along this stretch of the Sunshine Coast. Once a boat clears the calm water of the Mooloolah River system the ride out to the reef is about fifteen minutes, and the ex-HMAS Brisbane lies 2.8 nautical miles off Mudjimba. Operators ask for a certification card or a signed dive log proving the depth a diver has already dived to.

The reefs are rock with coral growing over it: ledges, overhangs and boulder piles rather than a tropical coral garden. Hanging Rock is an outcrop leaning over a sandy trench at 13 to 19 m, MKVI an east-west ledge at 10 to 17 m with a mini cave that usually holds large pelagics, wobbegongs and slipper lobsters, and the Pinnacles two towers rising from sand at 24 m to tops at 14 and 16 m, all on the Outer Gneerings. Old Woman Island, also called Mudjimba Island, carries a ledge from 16 m up to 5 m and is a haven for turtles. Several sites hold enough nudibranchs to be dived for them alone, and more than 200 fish species have been recorded at the wreck site.

The wreck is not currently the dive it was. Tropical Cyclone Alfred crossed the coast in March 2025 and lifted the forward smoke stack off the hull, setting it down intact on the sand, and both operators now list the ex-HMAS Brisbane as external only, with no penetration at this stage. It runs 6 to 28 m and is still sold to Open Water divers. The deeper reef is gated by certification instead: Murphys Reef, where Ship Rock runs 23 to 32 m and the Pyramids 19 to 31 m, needs Advanced or Deep, and a double-deep Mooloolaba Coral Reef trip mandates Nitrox certification and Nitrox use.

It suits divers based in Brisbane or on the Sunshine Coast who want a two-dive morning without a long trip, and newer divers holding Open Water, since most named reef sites are certifiable at that level and Mudjimba Island is sheltered enough for training. The operators still ask for prior boat diving and a dive to 15 m, and push a skills update on anyone out of the water a while. Divers travelling specifically to swim inside a wreck should wait for the Brisbane to be reassessed or go elsewhere; South West Rocks, further south, has both an overhead dive and grey nurse sharks.