Tinderbox Marine Reserve

Tinderbox Marine Nature Reserve is one of Tasmania’s best kept diving secrets. If you only do one dive trip with us, this should be it.

The Reserve offers wonderfully diverse diving with sponge beds, soft corals, kelp forests, weedy reef, rock ledges and crevices, seagrass, sand and silt bottoms and deep offshore reefs. It is a place that will delight photographers and anyone with an interest in marine life.

The currents and eddies along the Reserve feed sea whips, sea pens, basket stars, and corals. No-where else do you have such easy access to such special and diverse marine life.

On the rocky reefs there are encrusting corals, sponges of all shapes and colours, zoanthid, lace bryozoans, jewel anemones, not to mention sea hares, nudibranchs, sea horses and sea dragons; schools of bastard trumpeter, mackerel, pike and jackass morwong and masses of southern hula fish. Look closely and find the rarely seen red velvet fish, weed fish, draughtboard sharks and more. There are dozens of species of invertebrates, fish and algae.

Much of the best invertebrate life is in 10-15m of water, which means Tinderbox is accessible to divers of all certification levels and the longer bottom times provide excellent opportunities for photographers.

We dive several locations within the Reserve, giving you access to the highlights – the kelp forests, sponges and soft corals of the northern zone and the sea whips, gorgonias and sea pens of the south.

Tinderbox was one of Tasmania’s first Marine Reserves and was proclaimed in 1991. It is one of only two no-take reserves in SE Tasmania (the other is Ninepin Point).

FACT FILE:
Depth – to 30m
Highlights – invertebrates including soft corals and sea pens, fish life, range of algae including small kelp forests
Travel time – 30 mins
Of interest – definitely the invertebrates!
Gear – SMB or surface signalling device in case of currents, a torch can be useful

More reading – Parks and Wildlife information about Tinderbox Marine Nature Reserve or the Marine Reserves Fact Sheet that provides general information.