Best Places for Scuba Diving and Snorkelling in NSW

Running the length of Australia’s east coast, NSW offers more than two thousand kilometres of prime Pacific frontage, five qualified marine parks, and an enviable mix of tropical and temperate currents.

That collision of warm and cool water fuels incredible biodiversity: manta rays and leopard sharks mingle with weedy sea dragons, while humpbacks boom their road-trip playlist as they pass.

Better still, many of these world-class sites are as simple as parking the car, wriggling into your gear and walking straight into the water.

These are the best places for scuba diving and snorkelling in NSW.

If you’re hoping to start a lifetime love of scuba here, a full Open Water ticket takes three to four days if you knock over the theory online first, and kids as young as ten can earn a junior licence, albeit with shallow-depth limits.

Discover-dives are the low-commitment alternative for holiday-makers who just want a taste before the flight home.

NSW law insists you always take a friend, fly a surface flag around busy boat traffic, and know your exits before you splash in. Rangers are famously keen to protect no-take reserves and will fine rule-breakers. The same spirit applies to snorkelling.

Sydney’s water averages sixteen degrees in mid-winter and twenty-four in late summer; north-coast sites stay a touch warmer while Montague Island rarely tops twenty.

Summer brings the glamour species: manta rays at Julian Rocks, leopard sharks at Byron, juvenile tropicals throughout the Solitary Islands. It’s prime time for scuba diving in NSW too, especially in the north, with warm water and visibility often pushing twenty metres or more. Winter rewards dry-suit wearers with crystalline visibility and heart-thumping whale song.

Whatever the season, carry reef-safe sunscreen, respect the protected status of the friendly blue groper and log your dives so the pub stories survive the drive home.

From Byron Bay to Montague Island, you’ll find some of the best dive sites in NSW — think shark-filled caves, coral gardens, and snorkel spots straight off the beach.

If you’re wondering where to go scuba diving in NSW, start with these standout spots - wild, diverse, and closer to shore than you might think.

Two-and-a-half kilometres off Cape Byron, Nguthungulli rises like a half-submerged fortress where the East Australian Current brushes against cooler Southern water. That temperature tug-of-war fuels biodiversity so rich that scientists have logged more than a thousand species in the area. The reserve’s headline draw is its sea-turtle trio - green, hawksbill, and endangered loggerhead - which graze sponge gardens all year.

A ten-minute boat ride drops snorkellers straight into The Nursery, a protected amphitheatre five to twelve metres deep where branching anemones host clown-fish and juvenile sweetlips, and where first-time breath-holders can hover safely above the action. A little farther along is Cod Hole, a swim-through that starts at fifteen metres and slopes to twenty-one, sheltering grey-nurse sharks in winter, and swirling pelagics in summer.

January to March delivers twenty-plus metre visibility, balmy twenty-four degree water and a posse of leopard sharks and manta rays so chilled they’ll photobomb even snorkellers hanging on the surface. June to September swaps the tropical A-listers for humpback whale song and increased sightings of critically endangered grey-nurse sharks taking a breather in the deeper gutters.

Operators from Byron Bay and nearby Brunswick Heads run up to four departures a day, timing drops for slack tide when surge calms and the site lives up to its “underwater Serengeti” hype. It’s the kind of spot that reminds you why scuba diving in NSW keeps pulling people back year after year.

Push on to South West Rocks and you’ll find Fish Rock Cave, a 125-metre tunnel that cuts clean through a volcanic pinnacle two kilometres offshore. Torches pick out bullseye schools and glimmering baitfish; halfway along, grey-nurse sharks materialise out of the gloom like polite bouncers checking your buoyancy skills.

Because the cave’s deepest point hovers around twenty-four metres and swell can squeeze the entrance, this is one for certified divers with a few ocean dives already inked in the log book. If your gills are still growing, stay topside and book a half-day snorkel with the local operators who work Gap Beach when conditions shine.

Two hours south again, Broughton Island’s Looking Glass earns its reputation as a natural runway for grey-nurse sharks. The inverted-V crack starts at eighteen metres, rises to eight and drops again, treating divers to shifting shafts of sunlight and a fish bowl at the exit where jewfish hover like stagehands.

Nearby, the shallows at North Rock offer calmer water for snorkellers chasing kelp-lined gullies and adorably curious goatfish.

Fly Point at Nelson Bay rounds out the region with a sanctuary zone that stretches half a kilometre offshore. Snorkellers drift across sponge gardens that shelter pineapple fish and blue gropers, while scuba divers slide deeper to meet wobbegongs and cuttlefish.

Tropical ring-ins such as damsel- and butterfly-fish appear every summer when the current turns up the thermostat.

Twenty-five nautical miles north of Coffs Harbour, North Solitary Island sits squarely in the firing line of the East Australian Current, which means the water stays a couple of degrees warmer than the mainland and the biodiversity spikes accordingly. The headliner is Anemone Bay on the island’s northern flank, a crescent so sheltered it shrugs off most southerly swell and holds visibility long after the coast has turned to latte foam.

Close to the rocky shoreline the reef starts in barely five metres, making it shallow enough for snorkellers to laze on the surface and still gawk at a living carpet of anemones - the densest aggregation ever recorded - each one home to resident clown-fish that dart between tentacles like commuters dodging ticket inspectors.

Swim a little further and the bommies (Australian for a rock formation or outcrop of coral reef) stair-step to twelve metres, the perfect crossover depth where certified divers descend while their snorkel-only mates hover above.

Beyond the bommies the reef drops again to twenty-plus metres, and regulars book a second tank to visit sites with names like Fish Soup and Bubble Cave, where schooling trevally blot out the sun and loggerhead turtles barrel-roll through the up-current. JettyDive and Wooli Dive Centre run the fastest boats, the crossing taking about forty minutes on a good day.

Depth flexibility is the big win here: snorkellers never need to descend more than a breath-hold to meet the main attraction, while advanced divers still get their fix of overhangs, grey-nurse detours and current-washed ledges dripping with soft coral.

Even in winter the water rarely drops below nineteen degrees, yet the real magic happens in late summer when juvenile bannerfish and blue tangs arrive on the warm current.

Most dive tours in NSW work around the tides and clarity, with local crews heading out daily from Byron, Coffs, and plenty of spots in between.

Below Wollongong the Great Dividing Range relaxes into dairy country while the coast meets the spangly blue bit with headlands battered smooth by Tasman swell. Bass Point at Shellharbour stands out for its heritage-listed reserve and frequent appearances by weedy sea dragons.

Divers enter via a rocky gutter, descend to twenty metres and weave among bommies draped in kelp. Snorkellers hug the shoreline where shallow surge channels host soldier crabs and tiny stripeys.

An hour south, Jervis Bay flaunts visibility that can push thirty metres when winter westerlies glass off the surface. Boat trips to The Docks drop into swim-throughs lit by dancing sunbeams, while land-based snorkellers work the limestone ledges at Green Patch where fiddler rays scud across white sand. Narooma’s Montague Island completes the trilogy. From February to April playful fur-seals pirouette inches from masks before bolting for the surface in a blur of bubbles.

From beginner-friendly reef shelves to deep offshore caves, scuba diving in NSW covers more ground than many divers manage in a lifetime.

Seven hundred kilometres into the Tasman sits Lord Howe, a UNESCO-listed remnant of a shield volcano and guardian of the world’s southernmost coral reef. Researchers count roughly five hundred fish species and ninety corals, many found nowhere else.

Lagoon snorkel tours leave straight from the beach and seldom stray deeper than three metres, ideal for families. Certified divers chase drop-offs around Ball’s Pyramid where Galapagos whalers occasionally drift through blue water that seems to fall away forever.

Pack your fins, check the swell, and discover why locals swear scuba diving in NSW is the best way to sink right into the state.

A: You do if you’re planning to dive independently - a full Open Water ticket is the standard. But if you’re just curious, plenty of sites offer “discover dives” with an instructor, no licence needed.

A: Hard to name just one. For turtles and leopard sharks, head to Julian Rocks. After something moodier? Fish Rock Cave has shark-filled swim-throughs that seasoned divers rate among the best in Australia.