Eastern View Reef

Reef Dive | Shore access

Eastern View Reef Dive
© Phil Watson

Depth: 2 m (6.56 ft) to 5 m (16 ft)

Level: Open Water and beyond.

Eastern View Reef is a diving and snorkelling site on the Great Ocean Road (B100) just west of Aireys Inlet on Victoria's Surf Coast facing south-south-east into Bass Strait. It's at the coastal hamlet of of Eastern Creek, with the hamlets of Moggs Creek and Fairhaven to the east. There is a reef running diagonally out from shore. The reef is more of a series of scattered rounded boulders which turns into a crayweed forest.

Eastern View Reef lies off the the western end of the six kilometre long Fairhaven Beach, the longest beach on the Great Ocean Road. The road backs the entire beach. The beach runs due west from the mouth of Moggs Creek for 4 km, before slowly curving around to face east at the western Cinema Point. The southerly aspect exposes the beach to waves averaging 1.5 metres, which combine with the fine to medium beach sand to produce a 200 metre wide surf zone containing two bars. The inner bar is cut by rips every 300 metres, resulting in up to 20 rips along the beach. The outer bar, which only breaks in higher waves, has more widely spaced rips, when it is active. The Fairhaven Surf Life Saving Club, founded in 1957, is located toward the eastern end of the beach, and its members annually average 10 rescues.

On a very calm day with no wind and no swell it is a snorkelling and diving site for the experienced practitioners to explore. Eastern View Reef is potentially hazardous, with usually moderate waves and persistent and often strong rips. Westerly winds intensify longshore and rip currents.

The Eastern View Reef site makes for interesting snorkelling and diving when conditions permit.

Eastern View Reef Parking
© Google Street View

Location: Eastern View, Victoria 3231
Beach Marker: 110W

Parking: There is a large parking area on the southern side of the Great Ocean Road (B100) where the Great Ocean Road Arch is located at the coastal hamlet of Eastern View, to the west of Moggs Creek, Fairhaven and Aireys Inlet.

Entry/Exit: Take a look at the conditions. If you see lots of white water, head on home. If conditions are just right, gear up, walk down onto the beach and enter the water.

Warning: This is a highly hazardous beach dominated by strong rips. Always go with a buddy and be extremely careful. Experienced divers and snorkellers only. You need good physical fitness to dive this site in case the conditions change and the swim back is hard.

Ideal Conditions: Only attempt to dive or snorkel here if conditions are very calm with little wind, flat seas, and no swell. The beach faces faces south-south=east, so light offshore north-westerly to north-easterly winds can be acceptable. See WillyWeather (Eastern View) as a guide for the tide times and the height of the tide.

Bass Strait Warning: Always keep an eye on sea conditions throughout any shore or boat dive in Bass Strait on Victoria's coastline. Please read the warnings on the web page diving-in-bass-strait before diving or snorkelling this site.

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.

 

Eastern View Reef Location Map

Latitude: 38° 28.353′ S   (38.472551° S / 38° 28′ 21.18″ S)
Longitude: 144° 2.709′ E   (144.045145° E / 144° 2′ 42.52″ E)
Datum: WGS84 | Google Map | Get directions
Added: 2022-04-04 00:26:51 GMT, Last updated: 2022-04-04 10:46:19 GMT
Source: Google Earth
Nearest Neighbour: Eagle Rock, Aireys Inlet, 4,963 m, bearing 85°, E
Eastern View, Surf Coast.
Depth: 2 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.