Exmouth Navy Pier

The dive runs on the tide table rather than the clock. Slack water is short and the flow on either side of it is not something to negotiate, so the window shifts later each day and can land at dawn, at midday or well after dark; operators do run the after-dark slot when the timing falls that way. Access is arranged in advance through the operator that holds the base permit: you meet at the gate, get checked on as a group with ID, and carry kit down to the water together.

Structurally this is one object rather than a site with options. Pylons stand in rows with crossbeams between them, and the usual plan is to work down one side, round the seaward end and come back along the other, deepest at the far end and shallowing on the way home. Growth covers every surface to the point that the steel disappears under it, and the rubble and silt beneath the boards holds its own animals. Buoyancy control matters far more here than depth or navigation.

The pier stands on the gulf side of the cape rather than the ocean side, so the water is greener than the reef around the corner, with visibility running roughly 5 m to 20 m, and that nutrient load is a fair part of why the growth on the piles is so heavy. It rewards a slow, short-range dive; photographers get more out of it than sightseers do, and anyone who wants open reef scenery should spend their other days on the boat sites off the cape. Most people fit it around a wider Ningaloo trip in the dry months, April to October.