Edithburgh Jetty

Edithburgh Jetty Dive Guide, Yorke Peninsula

By ScubaDownUnder Team · 2026-04-13

Edithburgh Jetty is closed until mid-2027. Yorke Peninsula Council closed the jetty to the public from Friday 24 July 2026 while McMahon Services carries out repair works funded jointly by the council and the state government, and expects it to stay closed until mid-2027. In September 2026 divers reported builders' mesh fencing around all the foreshore jetty parking and the car park on the north side of the road, with walking access along the coast blocked as well, and described the job as major structural repairs to posts and cross beams below the waterline. There is no way onto the jetty, so do not plan a dive here until the council announces that it has reopened.

Edithburgh is a small town on the south-eastern corner of Yorke Peninsula, on Salt Creek Bay, about 50 kilometres across Gulf St Vincent from Adelaide but 226 kilometres away by road. In the language of the Narungga people, Edithburgh was known as Pararmarati. Before the 2025 algal bloom its jetty was one of the most celebrated macro dives in Australia. This guide covers what it was known for, what the bloom did to it, and what to check before you plan a trip once it reopens.

The Jetty

The jetty opened in 1873 to serve the surrounding farming district, later shipped salt and gypsum as well, and is now used mostly for recreational fishing and diving. It runs east into Gulf St Vincent for 170 metres on pylons set in groups of four. In December 2013 a council contractor removed about 50 pylons from the edges of the jetty, which angered the diving and marine conservation community at the time.

Diving Adelaide calls Edithburgh South Australia's best dive site, and the Scuba Divers Federation of South Australia (SDFSA) ranks it among the best jetty dives in the state. Most of the interest is in less than 10 metres of water; Visit Yorke Peninsula gives the depth as 5 to 7 metres. Stairs on both the northern and southern sides of the jetty lead into the water a few steps from the car park, new diving steps opened just before Christmas 2025, and at high tide you can giant stride from the deck. The SDFSA also notes a reef about 50 metres out from the north side.

Its reputation was built on small animals. Diving Adelaide lists striped pyjama squid and dumpling squid, smooth, tasselled and prickly anglerfish, seahorses, pipefish, nudibranchs, sand and blue-ringed octopuses and leafy seadragons, with night dives the best time for the pyjama squid, which come out of the sand to hunt. The SDFSA adds sponge-covered pylons, cuttlefish, squid, octopus and the odd Port Jackson shark or small catshark, and Visit Yorke Peninsula adds big-bellied and short-headed seahorses, eagle rays, ornate cowfish, giant cuttlefish and stargazers.

After the Algal Bloom

The 2025 harmful algal bloom hit southern Yorke Peninsula hard, and the sponges, sea squirts and soft corals that coloured the pylons largely died. In January 2026 former SDFSA committee member Steve Simmons reported some small creatures moving back but said the pylons were still quite bare and a long way from their pre-bloom state. He found more life away from the jetty, which he thought had been hit harder than its surroundings, possibly because of runoff from heavy rain on 4 April 2025 and weaker tidal flow at the shore end.

There were better signs too. In November 2025 a night dive turned up big blue crabs, a stargazer, pufferfish and Shaw's cowfish, with the seaweeds looking healthier and starting to recover in the shallows, and in March 2026 the SDFSA reported that the east side of Yorke Peninsula, Edithburgh and Wool Bay included, had improved and divers were back in the water. The Edithburgh and Wool Bay Jetties Marine Watch, a citizen science project started in September 2025 with marine ecologist Dr Janine Baker, Dr Craig Styan of Adelaide University and the council, has been photographing tagged pylons each month to track the recovery. How the jetty looks once the repairs are finished is not yet known.

Conditions

Steve Simmons' rule of thumb for visibility, published by the SDFSA, is that winds from the north, north-east or east, even light ones, usually mean poor visibility: south-easterlies are generally fine, southerlies good to great, south-westerlies and westerlies really good, and north-westerlies usually fine. Expect plenty of anglers on the jetty and watch for fishing line. Blue-ringed octopuses live under the jetty: look, never touch.

Site Access and Logistics

Edithburgh is 226 kilometres from Adelaide by road, about two and a half hours' drive. Air fills have been available from Edithburgh Motors, 58 Blanche Street. The town has a caravan park, two hotels and a tidal seawater swimming pool on the shore. Diving Adelaide has offered overnight guided trips here and gear hire for independent buddy dives; check with the shop and with Yorke Peninsula Council before you book anything for 2027. Wool Bay Jetty is the other jetty in the Marine Watch project.

Sources

- Yorke Peninsula Council: Ardrossan and Edithburgh jetty works update - Scuba Divers Federation of SA: newsletters of November 2025, January 2026, July 2026, September 2026 and October 2026, sdfsa.net - Scuba Divers Federation of SA: Algal bloom in South Australia, and Where to dive, sdfsa.net - Wikipedia: Edithburgh, South Australia - Diving Adelaide: Dive the Edithburgh Jetty - Visit Yorke Peninsula: Places to dive and snorkel - IUCN SSC Seahorse, Pipefish and Seadragon Specialist Group: Thousands of seadragons dead in South Australia's worst recorded harmful algal bloom - Edithburgh and Wool Bay Jetties Marine Watch: home page (ypmarinewatch.com)

Header photo: Edithburgh Jetty running out into Gulf St Vincent in January 2010, by Mattinbgn, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.