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Lady Musgrave Island, Great Barrier Reef
Most of the Great Barrier Reef keeps its lagoons to itself, ringed by reef and closed to boats. Lady Musgrave is the exception. Here a coral cay sits at the...
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Best Liveaboard Diving in Australia
By ScubaDownUnder
Australia's best reefs sit too far offshore for day boats. Here are the five liveaboard regions worth planning a trip around: the Great Barrier Reef and Ribbon Reefs, the Coral Sea, Rowley Shoals, Ningaloo, and the SS Yongala, with seasons, trip lengths, and the certification each one suits.
Lady Elliot Island, Great Barrier Reef
By ScubaDownUnder Team
Few dives begin with the certainty of Lady Elliot. Drop onto the Lighthouse Bommie in the cooler months and the question is rarely whether a manta ray will...
Ex-HMAS Tobruk Wreck, Hervey Bay
By ScubaDownUnder Team
An hour out from Hervey Bay, well past the shelter of K'gari and over open ocean, the boat slows and ties onto a mooring above what looks like nothing but...
Osprey Reef, Coral Sea
By ScubaDownUnder Team
There is a moment at North Horn that divers describe the same way years later. You drop down the reef to the lip of the wall, settle onto a natural...
Your First 10 Dives After Certification
By ScubaDownUnder Team
How to bridge the gap after certification: easy conditions, shop dives versus buddy dives, logging, gear familiarity and when to move on to AOW.
Choosing Your First Mask, Snorkel and Fins
By ScubaDownUnder Team
How to choose your first mask, snorkel and fins for Australian diving: shop fit tests, frameless versus framed, fin and boot choices, and budget tiers.
Rescue Diver: The Course Worth Doing
By ScubaDownUnder Team
Why divers call Rescue the best course they ever did: self-rescue skills, buddy assists, scenario training, prerequisites and costs in Australia.
Is Advanced Open Water Worth It?
By ScubaDownUnder Team
An honest cost-benefit look at Advanced Open Water: the 30 metre unlock, which Australian dive sites require it, when to do it and when to wait.
Lonsdale Wall, Port Phillip Heads
By ScubaDownUnder Team
The water at the entrance to Port Phillip Bay does not sit still. Twice a day, the entire bay drains and refills through a single narrow gap called the Rip,...
PADI Course Levels Explained
By ScubaDownUnder Team
From Open Water to Instructor: what each PADI level costs in Australia, how long it takes, what it unlocks, and how the ladder maps to SSI courses.
Ex-HMAS Hobart Wreck, Yankalilla Bay
By ScubaDownUnder Team
Four nautical miles off the Fleurieu Peninsula, in the green water of Yankalilla Bay, a guided missile destroyer stands upright on the sand. The ex-HMAS...
Pimpernel Rock, Solitary Islands
By ScubaDownUnder Team
Forty nautical miles off the New South Wales coast, a mountain rises out of the deep and stops just short of the surface. Pimpernel Rock is a submerged...
Wolf Rock, Rainbow Beach
By ScubaDownUnder Team
Two kilometres off Double Island Point, where the last rocky headland gives way to the long sand cliffs of K'gari, a cluster of volcanic pinnacles rises...
Kelat
By ScubaDownUnder Team
The Kelat was an iron sailing ship built in Glasgow in 1881, sixty years before the morning the Japanese aircraft arrived over Darwin. By 1942 she had finished her sailing career and was anchored in...
Wetsuit Thickness for Australian Waters
By ScubaDownUnder Team
A state-by-state guide to wetsuit thickness in Australia: when 3mm, 5mm or 7mm makes sense, winter water temperatures, hoods, gloves and semi-dry suits.
MV Neptuna
By ScubaDownUnder Team
The largest single explosion of the 19 February 1942 Darwin raid happened at Stokes Hill Wharf when the Norwegian motor freighter MV Neptuna, hit during the first wave of the attack, ignited her...
Best Places to Dive in South Australia
By ScubaDownUnder Team
South Australia is the temperate diving capital of the country, and the most underrated dive state in Australia. The headline species are the leafy seadragon, the giant Australian cuttlefish, and the...
SS Macedon Wreck: Rottnest Dive Guide
By ScubaDownUnder Team
Rottnest Island's most accessible historic wreck: an 1883 iron steamer broken up across a 5-12m limestone reef, beginner-friendly wreck dive.
Nitrogen Narcosis: What It Is and How to Recognise It
By ScubaDownUnder Team
Nitrogen narcosis, sometimes called "the rapture of the deep" or just "narc," is the diving-specific impairment that happens when divers descend below approximately 30 metres on compressed air. The...