Diving Adelaide
Adelaide Dive Sites, Underwater Photography and Marine Life
Adelaide offers an excellent selection of temperate water diving filled with beautiful invertebrate life, a myriad of fish species, and of course the famous Leafy Sea Dragon. Lovers of marine life will not be disappointed here.
Best Adelaide Dive Sites
- Rapid Bay Jetty – the best dive site in South Australia
- Edithburgh Jetty – beautiful shore dive with colorful pilings, nudibranchs, sea horses and leafy sea dragons
- Wreck of the HMAS Hobart – large wreck dove by boat. The wreck is 133 meters long, the depth is 30meters deep at the bottom, and rises as shallow as 5 meters.
- Kangaroo Island – is supposed to have some very good dive sites
- Bluff at Victor Harbour
- Whyalla – you want to dive here in cuttlefish mating season, from July to September to see the Giant cuttlefish mating
- There's more dive sites at Ben's site here.
Underwater school of fish at the Rapid Bay Jetty
Adelaide Marine Life & Photography subjects
- Fur Seals
- Cuttlefish – Giant cuttlefish mating is a great site to see at Whyalla. Otherwise squid and cuttlefish can occasionally be spotted at many of the local dive sites.
- Leafy Sea Dragons
- Short-spined Sea Horses
- Colorful Tunicates – found all over the piers of the jetties
- Nudibranchs – a good assortment of nudibranchs is found on the wrecks and piers around Adelaide, such as at Edithburgh jetty.
- Port Jackson Sharks – known as Horn sharks in California, these small harmless sharks usually rest on the bottom
- Pajama squid – found on night dives at the Edithburgh jetty
- Weedy sea dragon – not as commonly seen as the Leafy around Adelaide, but still spotted sometimes
- Anglerfish – known as frogfish in most the world, they occassionally pop up at a dive site
- Great White Sharks – dive with them safely in cages, and hope you don't see one outside of one. The diving is done out of Port Lincoln.
Crab underwater on a pier piling in Adealide
Best time to dive Adelaide
Adelaide water temperatures
15 degrees in the winter (August/September), up to 19-21 degrees Celsius in the summer (January / February)
Adelaide underwater visibility
Varies, anywhere from 5-20 meters, depending on depth and distance from shore.
Where to stay while diving Adelaide
Adelaide city is a good place to use as a base, and you can do daily trips to the shore diving locations. Sometimes divers will spend a night on the Yorke Peninsula near Edithburgh in order to get some early dives in the area. You can read more about shore diving with a dSLR underwater camera rig.
Adelaide Underwater Photography Tips
- Explore the different habitats of each dive site, there's different fish species in the different surfgrass, eelgrass, and other habitats.
- The ends of the jetties have the most concentration of marine life
- Check tide tables to avoid strong currents
- Most dive sites are good for macro and wide-angle
- Shore diving is great and easily accessible
Adelaide Underwater Photos
Tunicates on a pier piling at the edithburgh jetty, Adelaide
Photo of the famous leafy sea dragon
Further Reading
Underwater Photography dive destinations
Dive site research and planning
Diver's delight dive shop – for rentals and Leafy dragon tours
Lots of invertebrate marine life at the Edithburgh Jetty
Further Reading
The Best Dive Destinations
