Chowder Bay (Clifton Gardens)
Chowder Bay at Clifton Gardens, Sydney: a map of everything you can find underwater there, from the wreck to the scattered objects.
Most local divers know this site, and it is already described on Michael McFadyen's website, so there is no point repeating it. What is new here is a map of everything you can find on the bottom.
Conditions today: this site is Chowder Bay on the VIZ Forecast.
The Chowder Bay mapThey are not precious historical wrecks, but finding them is good navigation practice — and if you get lost, which is easy given how few references there are, head north-west and sooner or later you will hit the jetty or the beach.
Most of what is marked was found night diving in June and July 2020. There are smaller things down there too — buckets, rubbish bins — which I have left off.
Maps are 1:1000 (1 mm = 1 m), so you can measure distances with a photo editor or with the ruler in Acrobat Reader. GPS positions are WGS84; depths are at zero tide.
The wreck
A good change from the usual dive under the jetty: a 7 m boat in 16 m of water, usually with something living around it. Here is a video from June 2022.
The wreck site in detailSilt
The whole bottom here is very silty. Approach with care if you want photographs, or the wreck will vanish into a cloud. Visibility can be better than under the jetty and is more often worse.
Getting to it — the underwater trail
A good test of navigation. From the wider section of the jetty, swim perpendicular to the rubble patch and the big plough anchor in the middle of it, 28 m out. Follow the heavy chain leaving the anchor. After about 10 m it may disappear under the sand — hold the same heading and it reappears a few metres on.
Follow it to where it meets two more chains in a shape like chicken feet. At 11 m, that puts you directly under the big white buoy.
Take the right-hand chain and follow it for 20 chain rings, then turn 90° left and hold the bearing. After about 10 m a similar chain appears out of the sand. Follow it 45 m, past a tubular structure on your left, and the wreck is a few metres further on your left. Reverse the steps to return.
Or swim out on the surface
To the big white buoy — watching for boats at weekends. Drop down the chain to 11 m, find the chicken feet at the base, and pick up the directions above.
The three chains at the base of the big white buoy — the chicken footThe sand moves. It may cover or uncover the chain differently from what is described here, which was accurate as of June 2022.