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Published: October 27th 2007
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- October 25 - 27 Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef live aboard dive boat trip
- October 27 Cairns
- October 28 Day trip out of Port Douglas, Queensland - diving on the Great Barrier reef
I flew up to Cairns from Melbourne on Wednesday night. Early the next day I left on a two day dive trip to the Great Barrier reef with Deep Sea Divers Den. The diving was beautiful, especially the last two dives at a site called Troppos on Norman Reef. The weather was absolutely perfect, virtually no waves, little current, great visibility, warm water, and lots of sun! It still wasn't as wonderful as the diving at Sipidan in Borneo, but I think that set such a high standard that is virtually impossible to top. On the first dives I noticed a lot of the coral was dead and there wasn't as much sea life as I would've expected. Yes, I went diving on the Great Barrier reef without seeing a single shark or sea turtle, but I did see rays, eels, lots of cool fish and some beautiful coral canals and caves that were just spectacular. I also did a very fun night dive
- the water was just as warm as during the day. And we lucked out with having a gigantic full moon. It was just perfect!
The accomodations on the boat were just great and the staff and service were wonderful - I would recommend Deep Sea Divers Den to anyone coming up to Cairns to go diving. There were also a lot of fun people on the boat. I haven't met so many Germans outside of Germany, ever... I headed back to Cairns for a couple days to chill out for the weekend. Cairns is a lot smaller than I had expected, but it is full of friendly travelers and lots of fun people.
Continued...
I got back to Cairns, and in my one full day I spent in this town I quickly realized there was very little to do here. I switched guesthouses to one that was in the middle of town. They called themselves a '5-star backpackers.' And actually, for budget accommodations, it wasn't too bad. Each room had a balcony, they had a pool with waterfall (I'll get some more photos up shortly), they had a cute little outdoor bar and restaurant.
Seeing as there was so little to do in Cairns, I couldn't see hanging around here for another full day. Also, being so close to the Great Barrier reef, I thought it would be a shame if I didn't get out to the reef one more time. It's crazy expensive, especially in comparison to Asia and considering that the Aussie dollar is just about one to one with the US$. Anyway, I booked a trip with a company called 'Aristocat.' Perhaps that should've been a warning right there, but the guy at the travel agency assured me they were one of the better ones. It was a very expensive day trip for 3 dives. The good part was that they left from Port Douglas, about an hour north of Cairns to go out to the reef a bit further north in the Agincourt Ribbon Reefs and around. The reef up in these parts was not nearly as damaged as one of the sites we did on Norman reef (Though our last Norman reef site was amazing). There was a bit more life up here. Of course, it still did not come close to what we had seen in Sipadan
in Borneo.
Another advantage is that there were very few people on the boat and very few divers. Five of us went with one French Canadian dive master and the other group went on an intro dive with another guy. It was nice that there weren't tons of divers like on the boat out of Cairns. Anyway, during our first dive - and this is with certified divers only, and only to about 9 or 10 meters max - the divemaster asks each of us to tell him how much air we have about every 4 to 5 minutes - and not just signal to him, but he actually wanted to see our gauges. This turned out to be beyond irritating, considering the amount that I had paid to do 3 dives here. We spent most of the first dive waiting for people to tell him how much air they had and very little time actually seeing the reef. On top of that, they claimed to have a policy of limiting their dives to 40 minutes - which they could've told me about before I booked, right? I still had over half a tank of air and the guy
was signaling to go up. I politely complained when I surfaced. The other divemaster said that it was the first time anyone's complained about them being too safety conscious - but c'mon, really! We're here to go diving and we're all certified and capable of keeping an eye on our own air supply - especially in such shallow water!
On the next dive I noticed they gave me extra air, and the guy didn't ask me once to tell him how much air I had. It was a much more beautiful dive at a site with a huge pinnacle to swim around. I saw a gigantic Eagle Ray - I had never seen a ray that large!! We also saw some sharks (though again, nothing like Sipadan). But this site was still very beautiful. We still surfaced after 40 minutes when I had over half a tank - one person in the group had sucked her air down. In other parts of the world, they would've just let people with a lot of air left buddy up and continue diving - here of course with their unnecessarily overly cautious safety standards, the entire group had to surface. I was
View above Troppos Bay on Norman reef
This divesite was a magical, twinkly underwater heaven! The visibility was amazing! still happy though - it's always great to see something you've never seen before underwater.
On the third dive, this other guy took us out. He must have felt a little bad because he knew we were good with our air consumption, so we did get a much longer dive. He also showed us a lot of things underwater, including things that were safe to touch (and that wouldn't damage the organism). Usually, I just don't touch anything underwater, for fear of hurting or killing it, or hurting or killing myself. It was a lot of fun. At the end of the dive we all just floated in 1.5 meter water over the twinkly coral bed. It was very beautiful on this part of the reef.
Not sure whether I would recommend Aristocat when diving out of Port Douglas - perhaps there are other boats that would be a bit more fun. I really enjoyed just going off in buddy pairs on the Ocean Quest boat - obviously it's even better to go with a guide if that guide can show you some cool stuff. I'm still glad I did the extra day and saw that other part
Ocean Quest
Here's a picture of the live aboard dive boat where I stayed on the Great Barrier Reef. of the reef.
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Stefan
non-member comment
excellent days
Hi Kristin, Congratulations for this very nice blog entry and the pictures. After viewing them all I had a smile on my lips and I have to say we had excellent day diving the Great Barrier Reef. I wish you all the best on your big trip, enjoy every day alllll the best, Ciao Stefan from Munich www.hoerbrand.net/blog