Clovelly Pool
Clovelly, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
A narrow concreted inlet at Clovelly, sealed from the ocean by a rock breakwater, so it stays calm when the open coast is blown out. Sand and rock at 2 to 6 m inside the bay, 8 m near the wall, with a resident blue groper population, cuttlefish, Port Jackson sharks and rays. Scuba is banned 8 am to 6 pm from October through April.
Clovelly Bay is a narrow inlet between two rocky ridges whose foreshores were concreted during 1930s Depression-era works. A rock breakwater across the mouth, the remnant of an abandoned Olympic-pool causeway wrecked by a 1938 storm, makes the bay extremely calm, and it sits inside the Bronte-Coogee Aquatic Reserve where blue groper are protected. The floor is sand and rock at 2 to 6 m inside the bay, dropping to about 8 m near the breakwater and 8 to 11 m outside it, with entry via steps and ladders on the southern concrete platform. Eastern blue groper, giant cuttlefish, moray eels, Port Jackson sharks, wobbegongs, eagle rays and schooling yellowtail, bream and trevally are the regulars. Hazards are slippery steps, a strong outflow through the breakwater gap on the ebb, surge over the submerged wall in south-easterly swell and urchins on the rocks. Randwick City Council prohibits scuba between 8 am and 6 pm from 1 October to 30 April, so in summer it is dived early, late or at night; winter has no daytime restriction and generally clearer water.
Marine life
- Blue Groper
- Sepia apama
- Moray Eel
- Port Jackson Shark
- Orectolobus
- Eagle Ray
- Eastern Fiddler Ray
- Yellowtail
- Yellowfin Bream
- Silver Trevally
- Old Wife
- Red Morwong
