Voodoo

Voodoo Dive Guide, Kurnell

By ScubaDownUnder Team · 2026-02-21

Voodoo is the Sydney reef that almost nobody dives. Michael McFadyen, who has dived it since 1988 and whose group named it, writes that as far as he knows the only people who currently dive it are members of the St George Scuba Club, although a few years back he did see a charter boat there. That is a shame, because his notes describe excellent sponge life: the gorgonians here are, in his words, probably the most abundant of any site in Sydney, in all different colours, and the visibility is over 20 metres on most of his dives.

The name comes from the surf. Voodoo is one of the better surf breaks in the Cronulla area, east of Boat Harbour at Kurnell and right next to the outlet of the Cronulla sewage treatment works. McFadyen and his fellow divers called the reef offshore of the break Voodoo in its honour. He is explicit that this is a boat dive, and not the shore dive that some divers have more recently been calling Voodoo. His list of Sydney reef dives files it under Cronulla, Bate Bay and Port Hacking, without the asterisk he uses for sites that can be done from shore.

The outfall is part of the story. McFadyen writes that until the early 2000s it released virtually untreated waste straight off the rock platform, and that with the sewage now treated it is no problem to dive here at all times, subject to the seas. He describes the treatment as secondary; Sydney Water now lists the Cronulla plant as tertiary, with an average dry weather discharge of 55.3 million litres a day to its ocean outfall at Potter Point.

## The Reef

From the surf break the reef runs south for about 1.1 kilometres, according to McFadyen, and most of it is flat and, his word, uninspiring. The dive is at the far end, where the reef meets the sand. There the reef top has a few small cracks, then comes a small wall of a metre or two, then a quick slope from about 20 metres down to sand at 28 metres or a little more.

His GPS mark, 34° 02.9884' S 151° 12.0190' E (WGS84), puts you near the spot where the plainer reef to the east meets more complex reef to the west. If the GPS and sounder don't find it, he lines up the sewage outfall's breather pipes with Cape Baily Lighthouse and runs in towards them until the reef comes up, then anchors. That is the same line he uses as the northern mark for Osborn Shoal, whose own GPS mark lies about 1.5 kilometres to the south-west, on the reef that McFadyen says runs intermittently across Bate Bay from Kurnell to Bundeena. A second line is Centrepoint Tower over a track across the sand dune near Boat Harbour.

The dive is a choice between east and west. McFadyen used to head east, where the reef runs roughly east to west with a lot of very large boulders on the reef edge and on the sand. Further east the reef eventually turns north, beyond where he has dived. His advice for the eastern route is to stay closer to the sand on the way out, then come back shallower along the small wall, which has cracks running to the north and some small overhangs and leads you back to the anchor.

These days he prefers the west, which he calls far more interesting: many more large boulders, small gullies and overhangs, with the reef turning a little to the south. He writes that he has not been a huge distance in that direction, so his notes don't say how far the western reef goes.

## What Lives There

The sessile life is the reason to come. McFadyen describes the sponge life as excellent, with very nice sea whips, gorgonians and sea squirts or sea tulips, and rates the gorgonians as probably the most abundant of any site in Sydney.

The fish life is usually very good too. Expect a lot of silver sweep, one-spot pullers and yellowtail, with many black reef leatherjackets and some six-spined leatherjackets all along the reef. You may also meet eastern blue devilfish under the overhangs, plus fiddler rays, angelsharks, serpent eels and, in winter, Port Jackson sharks. McFadyen has also seen a big-belly seahorse on a sea tulip and a small lionfish here, and his photos from the site show a fiddler ray, a sea spider and a small cuttlefish. He thought the sand should hold sea dragons, but so far he has not seen any.

## Conditions, Timing and Who It Suits

Visibility at Voodoo is normally very good, according to McFadyen, with more than 20 metres on a majority of his dives. There can be a slight to moderate current on the bottom, normally running to the west, which he says is never a real problem.

This is an open ocean boat dive, so the weather on the day matters most. McFadyen's general rule for Sydney is that winds over 15 knots from any direction except the west or north-west are unsuitable for boat diving, and that 10 to 15 knots needs a lot of caution. He also points out that long-period swell wraps around headlands, and that this happens to a greater extent at the Kurnell dive sites than at Shelly Beach.

For timing, his analysis of 1,758 Sydney dives, done in 2009, found the best visibility in winter and the worst in October and November, with June the standout month: 29 per cent of June dives had visibility better than 15 metres. Wave records from a buoy off the northern beaches, which he summarises on the same page, give May to September the best chance of seas under a metre, although May and June also have the largest share of seas over 2 metres. Across more than 2,200 of his Sydney dives, average water temperature ran from 15.7 °C in August and September to 19.7 °C in March and April.

McFadyen sums Voodoo up as an excellent dive for the more experienced diver. The interesting part sits between about 20 and 28 metres, the bottom can carry a current, and both of his routes are out-and-back swims along the reef edge that end at the anchor, so plan depth, gas and navigation before you drop in.

One last note on names. McFadyen says some divers use Voodoo for a shore dive that is not this site, and his weather notes list that "Voodoo shore dive" among the spots that begin to become diveable in north-easterly and easterly winds. We could not find a dive-specific guide to that shore dive's entry or layout, so nothing in this guide, from the depths to the marine life, should be read as describing it.

## Site Access and Logistics

Voodoo is boat access only: the dive is at the end of a reef that McFadyen says runs about 1.1 kilometres south from the surf break, and you anchor on the reef using his GPS mark or transits. We found no charter operator that advertises the site. The St George Scuba Club, the group McFadyen names as its regular visitors, runs boat dives on members' boats, and its website says local dives are free but skippers appreciate a donation towards fuel. McFadyen's directions to neighbouring Osborn Shoal start from Port Hacking, heading north-east once you pass [Oak Park](https://scubadownunder.com/dive-sites/oak-park). Our [Voodoo dive-site record](https://scubadownunder.com/dive-sites/voodoo) carries the same GPS mark. No source we found names a nearest air fill for this dive.

On the rules, the shore near the site includes the Potter Point section of Kamay Botany Bay National Park, which NSW National Parks exempts from the $8 fee charged in the rest of the park's Kurnell area; a boat dive never needs to land there. The nearest marine protected area is Boat Harbour Aquatic Reserve, which covers the southern Kurnell shore, including Merries Reef, east to three green "Water Board" vents at Potter Point. Its seaward boundary is 100 metres from the mean low water mark, so the Voodoo mark, about a kilometre out, lies outside it. Inside the reserve you may not collect cunjevoi or any marine invertebrate except abalone and rock lobster, and that includes empty shells. We found no other marine protected area and no published diver exclusion zone covering the Voodoo mark or the Cronulla outfall.

## Sources

- [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: Voodoo](https://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=337) - [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: Sydney Reef Dive Sites](https://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=1) - [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: Osborn Shoal](https://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=315) - [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: Osborn Shoal East Drift](https://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=317) - [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: How Weather Affects Conditions for Diving in Sydney](https://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=909) - [Michael McFadyen's Scuba Diving: Visibility and Wave Averages in Sydney](https://www.michaelmcfadyenscuba.info/viewpage.php?page_id=744) - [Sydney Water: Water resource recovery facilities](https://www.sydneywater.com.au/water-the-environment/how-we-manage-sydneys-water/wastewater-network/wastewater-treatment-plants.html) - [NSW National Parks: Kamay Botany Bay National Park](https://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/kamay-botany-bay-national-park) - NSW Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development: Boat Harbour Aquatic Reserve, dpi.nsw.gov.au (page and 2014 reserve map; not linked because the site blocks automated link checks) - St George Scuba Club: home page, stgeorgescubaclub.org.au (not linked because the site blocks automated link checks)

Header photo: Boulders and rock platform at Potter Point, Kurnell, the headland beside the Cronulla outfall, about 1.3 kilometres north-east of the Voodoo mark, by Maurice van Creij, [CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Potter_Point_-_panoramio.jpg).