Rowley Shoals · Australia · Wall · Reef
The Bat Cave
Gorgonian fans and plate corals on a wall to 50 m
Area photo: Maclearite · CC BY-SA 4.0
The Bat Cave is on the outside edge of Clerke Reef, where the coral slope steepens into a wall and then drops off into blue water to 50 m. The wall is grown over with red gorgonian fans, yellow plate corals and pink soft corals, and the way back up runs through shallower gutters where whitetip reef sharks rest on the sandy floors.
Where it is and how deep
17.3167° S, 119.3500° EApproximate position — the dashed circle shows where the site lies; your operator's briefing has the mooring.
The dive
You jump in off the boat on the outside edge of the atoll, straight into clear blue water rather than over a shallow reef flat. The corals are in undamaged condition from the shallows down, and the reef slopes away, steepens and turns into a wall that drops off into the blue to 50 m. Divers descend onto the wall itself, and the job from there is to watch a computer: in clear sunlit water with nothing underneath for reference, it is easy to lose track of depth.
Running along the wall, what grows out of it does most of the work — bright red gorgonian fans, yellow plate corals and fuchsia-pink soft corals, with open ocean on the other shoulder. The dive ends back up on the reef, where the route turns into shallower gutters cut into the coral. Safety stops are spent there rather than hanging in open water, and whitetip reef sharks lie resting on the sandy floors of the gutters while divers wait out the time.
Marine life and season
- Reef sharks
- Pristine corals
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Off-season | Off-season | Off-season | Off-season | Fair | Good | Good | Good | Prime | Prime | Prime | Fair |
Season follows Rowley Shoals: Liveaboards run only in the short weather window Sep–Dec when seas are calm; the Kimberley wet season and cyclone risk close the shoals the rest of the year.
Know before you go
- Clear sunlit water and a wall with nothing under it make depth hard to judge, so the descent has to be tracked on a computer rather than against the reef.
Questions divers ask
How deep is The Bat Cave?+
The reef slopes down to a wall that drops off into the blue to 50 m. Divers work the upper wall and spend the end of the dive in shallower gutters on the reef top.
How do you get to The Bat Cave?+
By liveaboard. It is on the outside edge of Clerke Reef at Rowley Shoals, about 260 km west of Broome, and the shoals are reached only on a week-long boat trip from the Port of Broome.
Sources
- Diving Remote Rowley Shoals — Diveplanit
More dive sites in Rowley Shoals
White rubble floors at 8-12 m ringed by sheer coral walls.
Lagoon
A check-out dive circling one big bommie in 12 m of sheltered water.
Cave & cavern
Light beams through cave roofs with trevally circling
Drift
A tidal channel drift you ride rather than swim
Wall
A broadclub cuttlefish on the coral, sharks and turtles out in the blue.
Reef
Cupcake-shaped bommies above a reef slope that runs off to 50 m.
Sand slope
Hundreds of garden eels standing out of white sand at 20 m
Reef
Gentle coral slope that plunges to 50 m
Similar dives elsewhere
Gullies and trenches between reef turrets, and a gorgonian-filled overhang.
Bommies from 20 m on the lip of a thousand-metre wall.
Ten to thirty sharks work the ledges when the drum goes in
Wall and bommies with fiddler rays and eagle rays, dived above or below 20 m