Rottnest Island

Diving at its Best

The waters of Rottnest Island offer some of the best diving to be found anywhere. With dozens of sheltered bays and typical underwater visibility of 20 meters or more the limestone reefs of the Island are a pleasure for divers of any level.

Getting There

The dive boat departs on weekends from Fremantle. During the one hour boat trip you have access to tea and coffee. It is common to see wild dolphins as well as other marine life such as sea lions and in season whales during the trip. Trips depart at 9 in the morning and go straight to the first dive site, after the dive it's into one of the bays for lunch for an hour or so before heading to the second dive site then from here its straight back home, arriving at about 4.30 pm

The Dive Sites

The reefs around the Island are Limestone with many corals and plants growing on them. Rottnest offers thousands of sites with depths ranging from a couple of meters to extremely deep.

Crystal Palace
Located on the Southern side of the Island the depth ranges from 18 to about 3 meters, this is without a doubt one of the best sites offering a near vertical wall running for a couple of hundred meters and some really great limestone caves.

Roe Reef
Located on the Northern side, this site has some of the best caves around, very large and very safe, great for photography and one of Rottos best spots.

Swirl Reef
Found on the Northern side, with depths from 18 meters to the surface this site has one massive cave with several smaller ones leading off. This site can have waves breaking over it in a big swell.

The Shark Cave
We only found this in 2004 and the name says it all. The Grey Nurse sharks are only there during the height of summer and the cave is to be found off the West end of the Island in about 20 meters of water.

Kingston Spit
A shallow dive of about 9 meters off the Eastern end of the Island but full of cray fish and some really great coral to look at.

West End
Not for the feint hearted out here, this is the most Western point of the Island and is exposed to big swells in bad weather. The good thing about the West End is that you could see anything out here in the WILD WILD WEST, from sharks to whales, this really is the start of the open Indian Ocean.

West Patch
Off of the Western End with depths ranging from about 6 meters to about 30 meters, only divable in good weather as waves can break here but some very good caves and underwater life.