Childers Cove

Reef Dive | Shore access

Childers Cove

Depth: 1 m (3.28 ft) to 5 m (16 ft)

Level: Open Water and beyond.

Childers Cove is named after the earliest known wreck in the area, the three-masted wooden sailing barque Children which was sunk on 14 January 1839. The cove lies west of Peterborough on the Shipwreck Coast and is part of the Bay of Islands Coastal Park which continues on from the Port Campbell National Park at Peterborough and extends through to Warrnambool. From the car park off Childers Cove Road, it's about 40 metres to steps that take you down to the beach.

Childers Cove itself is another small, embayed beach. It is 100 metre long with a bluff crossing the western end of the beach. It is backed by 30 metre high, grassy bluffs, and 40 metre high, red headlands guarding the cove. The beach is low and flat, with a shallow bay floor. It has a few reefs and one narrow sea stack just off the beach. A permanent rip drains out of the cove.

Childers Cove is an interesting dive site with plenty of marine life and opportunities for underwater photography. The cove is quite shallow for a long way out to sea which means any swell results in problematic diving conditions and poor visibility. If you can handle such conditions then it will be an enjoyable dive. If you can't, then wait for a calmer day.

The Children shipwreck lies out near the tip of the eastern arm of the Childers Cove. All that remains of the wreck are ballast stones.

Diving Childers Cove requires calm conditions and a very low swell. See WillyWeather (Childers Cove) as a guide for the tide times and the height of the tide.

Shipwreck Coast - Children, John Scott and Antares Wrecks

Eastern Maar country

Traditional Owners — This dive site is in the traditional Country of the Eastern Maar people of south-western Victoria between the Shaw and Eumerella Rivers and from Yambuk in the south to beyond Lake Linlithgow in the north. This truly ancient Country extends as far north as Ararat and encompasses the coastal townships of Port Fairy in the west, Warrnambool, Peterborough, Port Campbell, Apollo Bay, Lorne, and Airies Inlet in the east, including the Great Ocean Road area. It also stretches 100 metres out to sea from low tide and therefore includes the iconic Twelve Apostles. "Eastern Maar" is a name adopted by the people who identify as Maar, Eastern Gunditjmara, Tjap Wurrung, Peek Whurrong, Kirrae Whurrung, Kuurn Kopan Noot and/or Yarro waetch (Tooram Tribe) amongst others. We wish to acknowledge the Eastern Maar as Traditional Owners. We pay respect to their Ancestors and their Elders, past, present and emerging.

 

Childers Cove Location Map

Latitude: 38° 29.364′ S   (38.489392° S / 38° 29′ 21.81″ S)
Longitude: 142° 40.391′ E   (142.673188° E / 142° 40′ 23.48″ E)
Datum: WGS84 | Google Map | Get directions
Added: 2021-06-01 14:29:52 GMT, Last updated: 2022-05-23 19:26:35 GMT
Source: Google Earth
Nearest Neighbour: Children, 153 m, bearing 203°, SSW
Shipwreck Coast.
Depth: 1 to 5 m.

DISCLAIMER: No claim is made by The Scuba Doctor as to the accuracy of the dive site coordinates listed here. Should anyone decide to use these GPS marks to locate and dive on a site, they do so entirely at their own risk. Always verify against other sources.

The marks come from numerous sources including commercial operators, independent dive clubs, reference works, and active divers. Some are known to be accurate, while others may not be. Some GPS marks may even have come from maps using the AGD66 datum, and thus may need be converted to the WGS84 datum. To distinguish between the possible accuracy of the dive site marks, we've tried to give each mark a source of GPS, Google Earth, or unknown.