Diving With Grey Nurse Sharks at Fish Rock

If you love sharks and you love scuba diving then you need to venture to the mid-north coast of New South Wales and visit South West Rocks for the chance to dive with groups of Grey Nurse sharks.

South West Rocks is a beach side village located half way between Sydney and Brisbane. It sits on the shore of Trial Bay, which was named because the brig Trial was wrecked here in 1816 after some convicts stole it in a bid to escape to south east Asia. The wreck wasn't discovered until 1817 by which time there was no trace of the convicts. It's assumed they either died of starvation or ran into some problems with the local Aborigines. Anyway that's a topic for another post...

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What I've come here for is the diving and one dive site in particular - Fish Rock. Fish Rock is a small rocky inconspicuous island that juts out of the ocean surface. But the bare rock sitting out of the sea hides some of the most amazing habitat and wildlife I have ever seen in one location. Here temperate waters meet tropical and so you get the best of both; turtles, lion fish, anemone fish, crays, yellow tails, eels, Queensland grouper, bull rays, wobbegongs, sponges, corals... and of course the grey nurse sharks.

Diving With Grey Nurse Sharks at Fish Rock

You get to Fish Rock by boat launched from the estuary just out of South West Rocks. Crossing the sandbar out into Trial Bay can be an adventure in itself depending on the winds and the tides but once clear, it's a twenty minute ride along the coast. Come at the right time of year and you might see whales on the trip out and often there'll be dolphins and seals playing around.

Fish Rock has several dive sites in and around it but the premier dive is through Fish Rock Cave. The cave runs 120 metres right through Fish Rock and is a true ocean cavern.

When you first enter the cave from the deep end, it's roughly 25 metres deep. It's quite a large opening when you first enter that narrows a few metres in. There's already crays and shrimps hanging on the walls or in the crevices and wobbegongs perched on rocks along the bottom. This first tunnel narrows out and next is a short swim up through a chimney. You can touch the walls on either side but it's not overly claustrophobic. There's no light at this point and you have to be careful about divers running into you from below or for that matter running into someone's fins but it's pretty easy to navigate through. But then as you ascend about 10 metres... then there's a faint glow in the distance and as you get closer the glow gets bigger and brighter, until you can make out the large cavernous exit at 12 metres. What makes this sight so breathtaking is the silhouettes of the sharks, surrounded by hundreds of fish. I did four dives through the cave and each time there where at least six sharks hanging around the exit. I was pretty impressed with that... but sometimes you can get up to thirty sharks.

The sharks mill around, slipping into and back out of the cave entrance. When we exit the cave we hug the left wall to give them space and are rewarded with the opportunity to get up close and personal. They will meander towards you and ever so slowly turn to pass. They are big animals, some are over three metres long and battle-scarred. Some have fish hooks hanging out of their mouths. Fish Rock is a protected habitat for Grey Nurses but until January, you were still allowed to fish around it. Since January this year, fishing with a line is now banned so hopefully next time I go there'll be less sharks with large hooks rusting away in their mouths.

The surge through and around the rock can sometimes be a bit disconcerting until you get used to it. It's not always there but when it is, it can pull and push you around a bit. Trick is to either go with it or find yourself a small nook, dump your weight and use the rock to keep you in place. The guides we had were always really good at warning us beforehand if there was any around and after a few dives you get used to it.

Fish Rock Cave is a magical dive site but the cave is not the only site at the rock. The Pinnacle is at the northern end of the island and rises from 30 metres up to 7 metres from the surface. This site was breathtakingly full of grey nurses, groupers and eels. Where ever we swam, there were another five or six sharks swimming past and the groupers were hanging around hopeful of being given a sea urchin snack.

If you're good on air, you can also circumnavigate the entire rock in one dive. This is a dive when you are constantly on the move but it's a great way to get a good perspective of all the dive sites and animals that live there.

You usually do a couple of dives each day, with tea or coffee and snacks offered in between dives. (There's no night diving at Fish Rock - that's when the sharks are out hunting.) We had a couple of days where the weather and conditions closed in but the guys at South West Rocks dive centre offered us an extra day's diving and another night's accommodation without charging us any extra... certainly can't complain about the customer service! Admittedly it was a quiet time of year so you might not always get that deal, but they are pretty accommodating whenever they can be.

If the weather does mean you can't dive, there's plenty to keep you occupied. South West Rocks is surrounded by national park so if bush walking's your thing, there's plenty of it. You should also visit the ruins of Trial Bay Gaol. The prison was built in the late 1800s and housed well-behaved prisoners who were put to work building a breakwater in the bay. It wasn't a success and the prison closed in 1903. It was reopened in 1915 to house German prisoners during World War I but closed again in 1925.

The visitor information centre in town also houses a small maritime museum and here you can read about the Japanese submarines causing havoc all along the east coast of Australia during World War II and the merchant ships they sank. There's plenty of shipwreck stories to keep you interested.

At the end of the day, a beer at the local surf lifesaving club watching the sun set is a great way to end the day - whether you've been diving or not.

When all's said and done though, the diving is the main attraction here and Fish Rock has a reputation as one of the best dive sites in Australia - which I'll definitely add my vote to. I did six dives over three days here and I'll be doing more for sure. It's one of the best diving and shark experiences out there, it's relatively inexpensive as far as diving holidays go and I can't recommend it enough.

Diving With Grey Nurse Sharks at Fish Rock

Jane Mitchell is a scuba diving instructor who works at a public aquarium for her day job. She loves introducing people to the joys that can be found underwater and discovering everything she can about shipwrecks and sharks.

Her website is http://www.shipwrecksandsharks.com

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