JLs Scallop Drift

Drift Dive | Boat access

Scallop Drift | © Phil Watson

Depth: 15 m (49 ft)

The goal on JL's Scallop Drift dive is to enable enough ground to be covered to ensure you can fill your catch bag with great big fat juicy scallops. The scallop beds move around a little, and there is no guarantee you will see them straight away. But rest assured you will see them.

JL's Scallop Drift is named after local diving legend John Lawler, a life member of the Victorian Sub-Aqua Group (VSAG) independent dive club, and co-founder and past president of the Victorian Artificial Reef Society (VARS). The dive site itself is in Capel Sound, Port Phillip, off the bay beach of Rye. The bottom is flat sand with Scallops, Stingrays, Sea Squirts, Flat Head, and Large Spider Crabs. (The crabs are not suitable for eating.)

Scallop Dive Site | © Phil Watdon

Divers have the opportunity to catch a feed of Scallops (Pecten fumatus) at this dive site. Remember your catch bag and current Victorian Recreational Fishing Licence. Please abide by all current fishing regulations, such as the bag limit of 100 scallops each, if you intend to catch scallops. See melbourne-scallop-dives for a list of other scallop dive sites near Melbourne.

Safety Tip: We recommend you read our boat-diving-safety and dive-float-and-flag pages and use the described Cray/Drift Buoy Line Diver Freedom System when drift diving from a private boat for scallops.

Boon Wurrung / Bunurong country

Traditional Owners — This dive site is in the traditional Country of the Boon Wurrung / Bunurong people of the Kulin Nation. This truly ancient Country includes parts of Port Phillip, from the Werribee River in the north-west, down to Wilson's Promontory in the south-east, including the Mornington Peninsula, French Island and Phillip Island, plus Western Port. We wish to acknowledge the Boon Wurrung as Traditional Owners. We pay respect to their Ancestors and their Elders, past, present and emerging. We acknowledge Bunjil the Creator Spirit of this beautiful land, who travels as an eagle, and Waarn, who protects the waterways and travels as a crow, and thank them for continuing to watch over this Country today and beyond.

JLs Scallop Drift Location Map

Latitude: 38° 20.238′ S (38.3373° S / 38° 20′ 14.28″ S)
Longitude: 144° 51.091′ E (144.851517° E / 144° 51′ 5.46″ E)
Datum: WGS84 | Google Map
Added: 2019-02-17 23:53:57 GMT, Last updated: 2021-05-14 21:47:33 GMT
Source: John Lawler GPS (verified)
Nearest Neighbour: Rye Scallop Drift, 450 m, bearing 343°, NNW
Depth: 15 m.

[ Top ]

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.