The Pipeline

Entry is by the stairs local divers built into the rock at the co-op end, away from the break wall. The swim out crosses sloping seagrass and soft coral beds until the pipe appears, running between several mooring blocks thickly encrusted with coral and sponge. Maximum depth is 18 m. The pipe and the blocks are the dive, hard structure on an otherwise soft bottom, which is where everything concentrates, so work slowly along them and back rather than trying to cover distance.

What lives here is small. White's seahorses hold on in the growth and ornate ghost pipefish hang in it, and nudibranchs are everywhere, including Polycera capensis, known locally as the Punk for its black-and-white striped mantle and bright yellow appendages. Cephalopods are the other reason to come: cuttlefish, blue-lined octopus and the inconspicuous pyjama squid, which is easy to swim straight past. Electric rays, stingrays and moray eels are also on the list here.

The site is best known as a night dive, and the operator that runs it rates it especially for night divers. The approach does not change after dark: the same slow line out over the seagrass, along the pipe and the mooring blocks, and back the way you came. Visibility does not match other Nelson Bay entries, so a torch earns its place on a day dive too, and the absence of larger fish keeps the small life out and active in daylight.