Fortescue Bay

Fortescue Bay & the SS Nord, Tasman Peninsula

By ScubaDownUnder Team · 2026-09-20

Beneath Australia's highest sea cliffs, the Tasman Peninsula offers two very different dives on the same stretch of coast. Fortescue Bay, inside Tasman National Park, is a sheltered bay where you can swim from the beach to reef at 10 to 18 metres. Further south, in Munro Bight below Cape Pillar, the steamer [SS Nord](https://scubadownunder.com/dive-sites/ss-nord-wreck) lies in about 40 metres, one of Tasmania's best-known deep wreck dives.

## Fortescue Bay

Fortescue Bay is the end point of the Three Capes Track, with a campground among tall gums behind a wide sandy beach and a boat ramp, and Parks and Wildlife lists snorkelling and scuba diving among its activities. The bay sits within the Waterfall-Fortescue Marine Conservation Area, which covers the water from Waterfall Bay south to Fortescue Bay. Fishing is allowed in marine conservation areas, so this is not a no-take reserve, but Parks and Wildlife singles out its rocky reef life and kelp.

Spirit of Tasmania's 2017 dive round-up describes easy shore access to reef at 10 to 18 metres. Reef Life Survey divers have run transects in the bay at depths of 2 to 18 metres, and on their surveys from 2015 to 2025 visibility ranged from 6 to 25 metres, with most readings between 8 and 15 metres.

The fish are typical of south-east Tasmanian reefs. The species counted most often on Reef Life Survey transects in the bay since 2021 are blue-throated and purple wrasse, southern hulafish, toothbrush leatherjackets, banded morwong, long-finned pike and barber perch, with draughtboard sharks, bastard trumpeter and longsnout boarfish seen less often. Surveyors counted a weedy seadragon in 2017 and big-bellied seahorses in 2017 and 2021, and Parks and Wildlife lists weedy seadragons, butterfly perch, striped trumpeter and the threatened live-bearing sea star among the conservation area's species. Southern rock lobster, blacklip abalone and feather stars are common on the transects.

## The Giant Kelp

Fortescue Bay was once known for its giant kelp, and Parks and Wildlife still describes the conservation area as holding some of the region's most persistent giant kelp forests. That picture has changed. Brandon Cole, writing for DAN in 2015, dived under a canopy in the bay but reported that 90 to 95 per cent of the giant kelp on Tasmania's east coast had gone, with the Tasman Peninsula's last holdfasts in Fortescue Bay and Munro Bight. When University of Tasmania researchers chose a restoration trial site in the bay, at 7 to 11 metres, it had once supported a dense forest but had no giant kelp left. They planted warm-tolerant kelp there in spring 2020 and found 51 healthy juveniles five months later.

The University says Tasmania's giant kelp has declined by 95 per cent and was listed as a threatened ecological community in 2012. A larger restoration project led by its Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, announced in December 2024 with Eaglehawk Dive Centre as a partner, combines replanting with harvesting the sea urchins that overgraze the reef. Long-spined sea urchins were counted on 45 of the 62 Reef Life Survey transects in the bay from 2021 to 2025. Eaglehawk Dive Centre runs a PADI Giant Kelp Restoration Specialty for divers who want to help. Ask the dive centre about the state of the kelp before you go, rather than expecting a towering forest.

## The SS Nord

The Nord was a steel steamer of about 82 metres, built at Greenock in Scotland in 1900 as the Maria Goriainova and later registered in London to the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company. In November 1915 she was carrying 12,000 cases of benzine from Melbourne to Hobart. At about 5 pm on 7 November, in heavy weather, she ran over the uncharted pinnacle between the two Hippolyte rocks, the same rock that had sunk the SS Tasman in 1883. Holed under the boilers, she headed for Port Arthur, but once the water reached the boilers she lost steam, turned back to shelter in Munro Bight and anchored there. Her crew of 42 got away in four boats, and she sank stern first at about 2 am on 8 November.

The wreck lies on sand about 100 metres off the Munro Bight cliffs, in about 40 metres. The Australasian Underwater Cultural Heritage Database gives 31 metres over the wreck. Michael McFadyen, who dived it with Eaglehawk Dive Centre, puts the engine area, where the boat anchors, at 35 to 40 metres, the sand beside the stern at 40 metres and the bow at about 43 metres. The hull is substantially intact around the stern but has collapsed forward of it, most of all over the forward holds, and the superstructure has gone. The triple-expansion engine and two boilers stand out amidships, and at the stern the propeller (two of its four blades are missing) and the rudder, hard to port, are the classic photographs. Bright yellow zoanthids cover much of the wreck, along with sponges, soft corals and sea squirts, and sea whips grow on the sand around it. The wreck was heavily plundered over the years and very few artefacts remain.

This is a deep and exposed dive. McFadyen warns that current can run all the way to the bottom, so hold the anchor line on the way down, and that it can be fairly dark at depth even when visibility is good, so carry a torch. His bottom time of almost 20 minutes needed about nine minutes of decompression. 50 Great Dives gives visibility of 8 to 30 metres and water of 12 to 18°C, with October to June the best months. Eaglehawk Dive Centre rates the Nord for experienced divers with Deep Diver training and stresses buoyancy control and careful gas management.

The Nord is more than 75 years old and is protected under the Underwater Cultural Heritage Act 2018. It is not in a declared protected zone, so you can dive it without a permit, but you must not disturb the wreck or take anything from it.

## Nearby Dives

North along the coast, [Waterfall Bay](https://scubadownunder.com/dive-sites/waterfall-bay) and Cathedral Cave offer sea caves and tunnels. Off Cape Hauy, fur seals haul out at the gaps beside the Candlestick and Totem Pole, and further out the [Hippolyte Rocks](https://scubadownunder.com/dive-sites/hippolyte-rocks) are a large seal haul-out with their own marine conservation area.

## Site Access and Logistics

Tasman National Park is about a 90-minute drive from Hobart on sealed roads. To reach Fortescue Bay, turn off the Arthur Highway (A9) onto the C344 and follow it for 12 kilometres of unsealed road, which is suitable for 2WD vehicles. A parks pass is required, and there is a pass machine in the day-use car park. The bay has a campground (book through Parks and Wildlife) and a boat ramp. Divers enter from the beach. Depths of 10 to 18 metres are within Open Water limits, but the water is cold, down to about 11°C in winter by McFadyen's account, so bring a drysuit or a full 7 mm wetsuit.

The SS Nord is a boat dive. Eaglehawk Dive Centre runs it from Pirates Bay at Eaglehawk Neck, a 30-minute run in calm seas, and adds a $35 per person fuel surcharge (October 2026 prices); there is normally no dive guide in the water unless you book one. Go Dive Tasmania also runs boat dives on the peninsula, and private boats can launch at Fortescue Bay. The Nord needs light winds: McFadyen notes that southerly or south-westerly winds over 10 to 15 knots rule it out, because the run past Cape Hauy is fully exposed.

## Sources

- [Australasian Underwater Cultural Heritage Database: Nord](https://www.environment.gov.au/shipwreck/public/wreck/wreck.do?key=7551) - [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: SS Nord](https://michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=733) - [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: Eaglehawk Neck General Information](https://michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=734) - [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: Cape Hauy Seals](https://michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=735) - [Eaglehawk Dive Centre: SS Nord](https://eaglehawkdive.com.au/the-nord/) - [Eaglehawk Dive Centre: Dive Services](https://eaglehawkdive.com.au/dive-service/) - [Eaglehawk Dive Centre: Reviving Giants, giant kelp restoration](https://eaglehawkdive.com.au/the-giant-kelp-forest/) - [50 Great Dives: SS Nord](https://50greatdives.com/auswreckx/entry/451/) - [DAN Alert Diver: Tasmania (Brandon Cole, 2015)](https://dan.org/alert-diver/article/tasmania/) - [Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania: Tasman National Park](https://parks.tas.gov.au/explore-our-parks/tasman-national-park) - [Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania: Fortescue Bay camping](https://parks.tas.gov.au/explore-our-parks/tasman-national-park/fortescue-bay-camping) - [Parks and Wildlife Service Tasmania: Marine Conservation Areas](https://parks.tas.gov.au/explore-our-parks/marine-reserves/marine-conservation-areas) - [Spirit of Tasmania: Tasmania's Top Five Places to Dive (2017)](https://spiritoftasmania.com.au/blog/tasmanias-top-five-places-to-dive) - [Reef Life Survey via AODN: surveys at Fortescue Bay sites](https://geoserver-portal.aodn.org.au/geoserver/wfs?service=WFS&version=1.0.0&request=GetFeature&typeName=imos:ep_survey_list_public_data&outputFormat=application/json&bbox=147.95,-43.145,147.975,-43.115) - [Reef Life Survey via AODN: fish counts at Fortescue Bay sites](https://geoserver-portal.aodn.org.au/geoserver/wfs?service=WFS&version=1.0.0&request=GetFeature&typeName=imos:ep_m1_public_data&outputFormat=application/json&bbox=147.95,-43.145,147.975,-43.115) - [Reef Life Survey via AODN: invertebrate counts at Fortescue Bay sites](https://geoserver-portal.aodn.org.au/geoserver/wfs?service=WFS&version=1.0.0&request=GetFeature&typeName=imos:ep_m2_inverts_public_data&outputFormat=application/json&bbox=147.95,-43.145,147.975,-43.115) - [NESP Marine Biodiversity Hub: Assessing the feasibility of restoring giant kelp forests in Tasmania (Layton and Johnson, 2021, PDF)](https://www.nespmarine.edu.au/system/files/Layton%20et%20al_E7_M5_Assessing%20the%20feasibility%20of%20restoring%20giant%20kelp%20forests%20in%20Tas.pdf) - University of Tasmania: Working together to safeguard threatened giant kelp forests (19 December 2024; utas.edu.au, which blocks automated link checks) - [Go Dive Tasmania: Boat Dives](https://godivetas.com.au/products/boat-dives) - [DCCEEW: Visiting underwater heritage sites](https://www.dcceew.gov.au/parks-heritage/heritage/underwater-heritage/visiting-underwater-heritage-sites) - [DCCEEW: Underwater heritage protected zones](https://www.dcceew.gov.au/parks-heritage/heritage/underwater-heritage/protected-zones)

Header photo: Sunrise over Fortescue Bay from its boulder shore, Tasman Peninsula, by JJ Harrison, [CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Fortesque_Bay_Sunrise_2.jpg).