What do you do when it’s forecast to rain the entire weekend? The best answer is go with it and get wet. There’s no doubt diving, snorkeling or swimming with seals on the NSW South Coast is about the most fun you’ll have underwater.

Quick Overview:

Montague Island is located just offshore New South Wales’ south coast and provides the most amazing snorkeling adventures. The snorkeling experience can last anywhere up to 3 hours.

 

Highlights

  • Swimming with seals!
  • A whole load of other amazing underwater wildlife
  • An absolutely unique day out

Montague Island

We piled ourselves into the car for a road trip down the south coast to Narooma – approximately five hours south of Sydney.

I’d always heard that fur seals are super interactive and playful underwater, so when my friend suggested we book a dive, I was keen as mustard.

We could have gone swimming with seals closer to home, but Montague Island is known for great visibility. The island also attracts a wide array of marine life, including little penguins!

The weather held for the choppy 30 minute boat ride out to the island (which left a couple of members of our party green) and we anchored in a sheltered bay on the western side.

 

Swimming with Seals, The Dancers Of The Sea // Montague Island (NSW) Joel Johnsson, seal, person, diver, underwater, blue

The Dancers of The Sea

People say that seals are the puppy dogs of the ocean. But as soon as you get into the water with them, you realise that they’re the dancers.

They spin, somersault, pirouette and glide; liquid like the water around them. They charge straight towards you before finning away at the last moment to check out another diver, perhaps nibble on their fins, before darting to the surface with a burst of bubbles.

 

 

The seals are effortless, inquisitive and excitable. All they really want to do is play.

If you tumble, they tumble. If you stand on your head, they’ll try it to see what you’re doing. Apparently, they’ve been known to pick up bits of kelp for a round of tug-of-war on occasion.

And when you’re floating on the bottom with aquatic acrobats zooming around you from all sides, you feel flounderingly two-dimensional in their three-dimensional world!

A World of Underwater Wildlife

But the seals were only part of the story. The water around Montague Island is incredibly clear throughout the winter months, and the diving is fantastic in general.

 

Swimming with Seals, The Dancers Of The Sea // Montague Island (NSW) Joel Johnsson, seal, underwater, close up

 

When we weren’t burning through our air swimming with the seals, we came across long, languid wobbegongs, shadowy grey nurse sharks, bull-rays that rippled across the sand, and big blue groper that fed from your hand if you broke open an urchin for them.

We even spotted a patterned hawksbill turtle finning along with one of the deeper walls, in the same unhurried way that all turtles seem to.

Where Can I go Swimming With Seals?

You can dive with seal colonies in Wollongong, Jervis Bay, and Narooma. We dove with Chris and the team at Island Charters in Narooma. If you’re not an accredited diver (Open Water is all you’ll need), you can still book a snorkeling tour with is just as good!

As I write this, there’s the drum of rain on the window panes and outside the pavements ripple with raindrops. I know where I’d rather be… and it doesn’t involve staying dry. Go with it.

 

Photo thanks to DNSW