Diving-northern beaches Sydney

[naga]

I'm an expat coming home for the first time in nearly 3 yrs and am wondering about some easy shore diving on Sydney's northern beaches in late Dec/ early Jan (i've never dived in Oz either!).

Can anybody please enlighten me about ops/ prices, recommendations, etc?

muchas gracias in anticipation.

 

[fredaroony]

Shelley Beach and Fairy Bower(my favourite) are your best bets. Both are in Manly.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Shelley Beach and Fairy Bower(my favourite) are your best bets. Both are in Manly.

The dive you call Fairy Bower... do you enter at the boatramp at the beach and stay left towards Fairy Bower? I love that dive too... like to visit the Pineapple fish. We did our longest dive ever there a few weeks ago.. 2hours 35 minutes of bliss!

If the Op can get to Bare Island they shouldn't be dredging through that time so the viz should be ok and there are some brilliant dives there as well. Clovely pool as a night dive and Fairlight are good dive sites as well

 

[fredaroony]

The dive you call Fairy Bower... do you enter at the boatramp at the beach and stay left towards Fairy Bower? I love that dive too... like to visit the Pineapple fish. We did our longest dive ever there a few weeks ago.. 2hours 35 minutes of bliss!

No, I enter in next to the Cafe near the sea water pool then go towards the left. Its a long swim from the beach and not much to see on the way.

Its still the best dive I've done in Sydney so far and its only 15 mins from my house

 

[bowlofpetunias]

would be a long walk with gear on from the nearest parking..you must have a local parking permit then? Sounds like it would be a nice dive to do. We did 2 hours 35 minutes from the boat ramp to the left and back. The spot the pineapple fish hang out is before the sea water pool....

 

[fredaroony]

would be a long walk with gear on from the nearest parking..you must have a local parking permit then? Sounds like it would be a nice dive to do. We did 2 hours 35 minutes from the boat ramp to the left and back. The spot the pineapple fish hang out is before the sea water pool....

Its only about a 100 metre walk as I park in one of the back streets from the Cafe. Its free 2 hour parking in that area and I've never had a drama. I usually dive Fairy Bower at least once a week.

 

[bowlofpetunias]

Hmm... Would be a problem for us. With gearing up and getting packed up after the dive we would never be able to be out in 2 hours. We would have to cut our dive time down a fair bit. We checked for a parking spot in that area. Everything we saw required a resident parking permit. Maybe we were looking in the wrong spot

 

[OzMarineBoy]

Shelley Beach is nice and easy :cool2:

 

[naga]

thx everybody

 

[bowlofpetunias]

thx everybody

Sorry we seem to have missed your request on prices and dive ops.. I think Manly dive centre is close by there but don't know prices. Have heard good things about them. We have our own gear and normally deal with Frogdive or SydneyDive Academy because of convenience to our home and most used dive sites. Did you get any dives in so far?