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wave of excitement and stomach ‘butterflies’ with a feeling of weightlessness - those sensations hit you well before you are in the water diving the iconic site of Rapid Bay Jetty. Those butterflies hit as you come over a particular crest along the road on the way down to the Jetty. Local divers know the crest in the road I’m talking about – it gets you every time! The same way the anticipation of diving this iconic site still does for me – every single dive. In truth, the nervous energy always starts well before the dive for me. Early in the morning, coming over one of the last hills on the road to the Jetty, a spectacular panorama of St Vincent’s Gulf and surrounding hills unfolds in front of you. It’s an inspiring view, and a welcome site after the 90-minute drive from South Australia’s capital, Adelaide. Not long now, you will be diving the renowned Rapid Bay Jetty. Rapid Bay Jetty has been rated as one of the top 50 dive sites ‘to do’ in Australia. A list many of us are working through as overseas travel uncertainty is set to continue for the foreseeable future. But what is it about this site that makes it so dive-able? Apart from being known as one of the sites to see leafy sea dragons, for me its history and structure has contributed to this accolade, and the reason you are unlikely to tire of this expansive site any time soon. One of the most-popular dive sites in South Australia, Rapid Bay Jetty is, in fact, two jetties, and they run parallel to each other. From land the site is nestled between beautiful, secluded beaches and rugged cliffs. From the sea it’s located near the Rapid Head Sanctuary Zone and a part of the greater Encounter Marine network. The original jetty’s construction was completed back in 1942 and was used to transport limestone from the open cut mine over-looking it, down onto the large ships that transported it to places like Whyalla and Port Kembla to be used as a component in steel fabrication. So, as a working industrial Jetty, its wooden construction was heavy and well- fortified to withstand the large ships docking back in its working days. The second Jetty is a much more modern steel and concrete construction and was opened to the public in 2009. Despite its fortification the original Jetty has been closed for over a decade to all foot traffic as it is no longer safe or stable – a good call as in the last couple of years alone
large sections of the jetty have begun to collapse with a significant collapse occurring early January 2022, although it still has a long way to go before it is totally gone. This fated demise has been occurring since its construction and why I think of it as a wreck and reef dive as well as a beautiful Jetty dive. However, this decline of the Jetty is the very thing that gives this site its uniqueness and beauty. Early in its life the jetty developed structural issues. Teredo Worm or ‘shipworm’ had begun to infest the pylons and caused them to weaken and decay – the fix to this was to encase the pylons in concrete collars, but over time they too have become unstable and cracked and fell to the seafloor, creating a reef structure and habitat.
The Rapid Bay Jetty is one of the most-renowned dive sites in Australia, and for good reason, as Chelsea Haebich explains Photographs by Chelsea Haebich
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