Magic Point

Magic Point Dive Site Guide, Maroubra, Sydney

By ScubaDownUnder Team · 2025-06-14

Magic Point is the southern headland of Maroubra Bay in Sydney's eastern suburbs. Just off its northern side, a short underwater wall holds a cave where grey nurse sharks gather, and the water around it is grey nurse shark critical habitat under NSW law. It is the only one of the state's grey nurse critical habitat sites in Sydney, and it has drawn charter boats since the sharks turned up around 2000.

It is a short dive, typically in 15 to 24 metres, and the sharks are never a sure thing. Numbers have swung from more than 20 to none at all, so treat a sighting as a bonus rather than a promise.

## How the Sharks Came Back

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, spearfishers and scuba divers killed grey nurse sharks in large numbers with powerheads. Michael McFadyen, who has logged Sydney dives since 1988 and grew up at South Maroubra, writes that after the early 1960s there were virtually no regular grey nurse populations left around Sydney. Before the sharks were found he had dived South Maroubra many times, once right on Magic Point while searching for the wreck of the SS Tekapo, and never saw a grey nurse there.

That changed in late 1998, when spearfishers found a couple of sharks off the point. By early 2000 it was known they were back in larger numbers. The species has been protected in NSW since 1984, and the east coast population is now listed as critically endangered under both the NSW Fisheries Management Act 1994 and the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act 1999.

McFadyen's own sighting log shows how much the numbers move. He counted 13 to 16 sharks per dive in April and May 2000. On 9 February 2003, after at least six charter boats had put at least 55 divers on the site in about 90 minutes, he found only four, and other divers told him there were often none at all in 2003 and 2004. Numbers later recovered: he counted 26 in July 2008, 20 in June 2011 and 13 in August 2012, then 9 in 2013 and 2014, 6 in August 2022, and 5 in June 2025, just after a charter boat with more than 20 divers had left. He also notes that from 2013 to 2024 there were long periods when no sharks were seen at all.

The sharks move between sites. A large, deformed female McFadyen photographed at Magic Point had also been photographed by him at Fish Rock, on the NSW mid-north coast, on 13 November 2005. Abyss Scuba Diving, which runs trips here, says plainly that no number, and no sighting at all, can be promised.

## The Dive

McFadyen describes a wall running east to west, with the sharks living in a cave on a short section that runs north to south. The cave sits at about 15 metres and extends about 15 metres along the wall, and there is a second large overhang about 30 metres to the south-east. PADI's site description, contributed by Abyss Scuba Diving, gives the wider profile: the dive can start as shallow as 8 metres depending on where the boat anchors, follows a wall east down to 15 metres past a larger and a smaller cave, then crosses boulders to the sand line at about 24 metres.

Once on the bottom, McFadyen's approach is to head to the cave and stop about five metres in front of it, on the cleared patch just in front of the kelp, and let the sharks come and go. They mill in and out of the cave and sometimes swim off on short loops. Most of the sharks he has seen here are females, some as small as about a metre, and they are often escorted by huge schools of yellowtail, plus remoras and pilot fish. NSW DPI notes that grey nurse sharks are not a threat to divers unless provoked.

McFadyen never does a full dive here. He normally drops in on the way back from a site further north, such as [Shark Point](https://scubadownunder.com/dive-sites/shark-point) or [Wedding Cake Island](https://scubadownunder.com/dive-sites/wedding-cake-island), using the air left from the first dive, because 20 to 25 minutes is enough to see everything.

## Beyond the Sharks

The reef around the caves is worth a look in its own right. McFadyen lists giant cuttlefish, plenty of seadragons, giant rays and huge schools of yellowtail. PADI's listing adds weedy seadragons, [wobbegongs](https://scubadownunder.com/blog/wobbegong-the-camouflaged-carpet-shark-of-australia), Port Jackson sharks and crested horn sharks, and Abyss mentions rays, moray eels, octopus and nudibranchs around the ledges, kelp and sand. For more on the species itself, see our [grey nurse shark guide](https://scubadownunder.com/blog/the-grey-nurse-shark-the-gentle-giant-of-australias-reefs).

## Rules in the Critical Habitat

NSW DPI's map shows the Magic Point critical habitat as a circle of 200 metres radius around a reference point just north of the headland (33° 57.359' S, 151° 15.864' E), with its landward edge about 50 metres off the rocks.

The national Code of Conduct for Diving with Greynurse Sharks applies in all NSW waters, including here. Under it, divers must not:

- dive at night in grey nurse critical habitat - touch, feed or interfere with the natural behaviour of the sharks - chase, harass or interrupt their swimming patterns - block cave entrances or gutters, or trap a shark - dive in groups totalling more than ten divers - use mechanical apparatus such as scooters, horns or shark pods

DPI warns that penalties for breaching the code include fines of up to $110,000 or two years' imprisonment, or both. Tour operators must also brief divers on grey nurse habitat at each site and make sure their divers follow the code.

Fishing rules apply too. Line fishing with bait is banned year-round inside the critical habitat (soft plastics, artificial baits and vegetable baits are allowed), while other line fishing and spearfishing are permitted.

In practice, Abyss asks divers to watch from outside the caves, never enter or crowd them, and keep the sharks' swimming paths clear. McFadyen's advice is blunter: if a big charter group is already on the site, wait until it leaves or go somewhere else, because large groups scare the sharks off.

## Conditions

Abyss describes Magic Point as an exposed offshore site, with swell and surge around the reef and overhangs, current that can change the descent, route or ascent, and visibility that varies after weather. The skipper's call on the day is final.

McFadyen recorded 15 to 20 metres of visibility on his Magic Point dives. Across more than 1,700 Sydney dives, he found visibility best in winter (June especially) and worst in October and November, with better than 10 metres on half of all dives. His Sydney water temperatures average 15.7°C in August and September and 19.7°C in March and April, with extremes of 11.5°C and 24.4°C.

## Site Access and Logistics

- **Getting there:** for almost every recreational diver this is a boat dive. Abyss calls the long, exposed shore approach a demanding specialist undertaking, not normal shore access. McFadyen says that as of 2025 he knows of only two charter boats that visit, each carrying about 25 divers. - **Operator:** [Abyss Scuba Diving](https://www.abyss.com.au/magic-point) runs scheduled Magic Point boat dives, most departing from Fisherman's Wharf at Sans Souci Park. The site can change on the day if conditions are unsuitable. - **Own boat:** McFadyen heads out of Botany Bay and north past Long Bay until Maroubra Beach is in view; the point on your left is Magic Point and the site is a short way towards the beach. His GPS mark is 33° 57.3883' S, 151° 15.9187' E (WGS84). Running in towards the rocks, the depth rises from 20 metres to 15 and then 8; he anchors on top in southerly or south-easterly winds and in the deeper water in northerly winds. - **Certification and gear:** Abyss requires Advanced Open Water for any planned dive beyond 18 metres and sets the level per trip, so check the listing. Bring a dive computer, an SMB and an audible signalling device. - **Timing:** no night diving in the critical habitat.

## Sources

- [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: Magic Point Sharks](https://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=302) - [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: Visibility and Wave Averages in Sydney](https://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=744) - [Abyss Scuba Diving: Magic Point](https://www.abyss.com.au/magic-point) - [PADI: Magic Point dive site](https://www.padi.com/dive-site/australia/magic-point/) - NSW Department of Primary Industries: Fishing and diving rules at Greynurse Shark aggregation sites (dpi.nsw.gov.au) - NSW Department of Primary Industries: Fishing closures, Magic Point (dpi.nsw.gov.au) - NSW Department of Primary Industries: Magic Point Greynurse Shark critical habitat map, PDF (dpi.nsw.gov.au) - NSW Department of Primary Industries: Primefact 582, Greynurse Shark, February 2013, PDF (dpi.nsw.gov.au)

Header photo: A long-exposure view from the rock ledges at Magic Point, Maroubra, by Timothy M Roberts, [CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Magic_Point,_Maroubra,_Sydney_%2828315252273%29.jpg).