Australia February 2023 - GBR - Whitsundays - Yongala - ???

[BiSi]

Hello everybody,
fairly new to Scubaboard, I am hoping that you can help me with my questions... and sorry, if it´s a bit longer...

Some 30 years ago I did my first certificate (PADI OWD) with Pro Dive Whitsunday off Airlie Beach and and a great time! Back then I perfectly fit into the target group for Backpacker´s 3 days cruises. Also, the GBR was not yet as damaged as it seems to be now and of course I was more than thrilled by what I saw.

Fast forward 30 years - As a more experienced diver, I now have the opportunity to visit Australia again due to the wedding of a dear friend (so no flexibillity date-wise) with my partner in life and diving

From my research so far (also in this forum) I gathered that there are almost no "normal" liveaboards like we know from other destinations ("normal" meaning at least 7 days, focus on diving only, small groups of more or less experienced divers). Most tours I found are 1, 2 or max. 3 day trips with heaps of people and focussing on introductory dives or snorkelling. I also gathered it is not the best season, but as mentioned - no flexibility there.
The two I found which somehow fit what we are looking for are Mike Ball and Spirit of Freedom. Both are departing from Cairns going to the Coral sea.
Question 1: isn´t the reef worse off in the north? Already 30 years ago it was more intact further south - has that changed? As divers who have seen many places all over the world (including PNG, Indonesia, Mexico, Galapgos, Maldives, Red Sea...) is it "worth" spending a lot of money for one of these cruises, or is it likely to be disappointed? Especially that time of the year (Feb.)?

Question 2: Aren´t there any such trips leaving further south? I found the "Kiana" departing from Airlie Beach for 5D4N, but unfortunately they are not running this trip in February. Other than that it´s all day trips or max. 3 days, very Backpacker/introductory/snorkel/party focussed. Where do "serious", experienced divers go on the GBR???

Question 3: does it maybe make more sence to stay on one of the Islands and dive from there? Which would be best from a diving point of view?

I am now thinking maybe we just do 2 days of diving from Ayr - Yongala and Stanley Reef with Yongala Divers and then leave for PNG or the Solomon Islands.

Would be great to get answers, comments, help, advice, insider tips.... I somehow can´t believe that there is no "serious" diving at one of the most beautiful spots of the world.

Thank you so much in advance!
BiSi

 

[Damselfish]

We were in a similar situation when we went there, on a biz trip with fixed dates and needed to get home by a certain date. We wound up doing some land stuff then a 3 night Cod Hole trip (on Taka which is no longer there - and not even the LOB we originally booked, which is a whole 'nother story.) We wanted to do SOF 7 night trip but dates or availability didn't work.

Assuming they are running normally, Mike Ball and Spirit of Freedom are pretty much what you call "normal" 7 night liveaboards departing/returning to Cairns, and probably what you are looking for. The 7 night trip is a combo of their 3 night Cod Hole or 4 night Coral Sea trips. If you do one of the shorter trips, you fly to/from the Lizard Island midpoint at beginning or end of the charter. If space available you might be able to combine these in the opposite order to get more date flexibility, or pick one, or add time at Lizard island (with added flight costs of course.)

The 1-3 night liveaboards you mentioned have their place but the diving is not as good as further north. (At least not when we were there, which was many years ago.) We did a couple final dives in that area on the way back to Cairns and were not impressed. The name "Outer Reef" makes it sound remote and suggests pristine, but it's just "outer" from Cairns, and nothing like the Ribbon Reefs etc as you go further north.

The Yongala/PNG/Solomon islands idea sounds good too. Weather aside, at this point it may depend on who's running and availability.

 

[Aquapro Dive Services]

Damselfish covered it very well.

In short as a Cairns local:

• Far northern reef much better than south.
• Only Mike Ball and SOF run twice weekly. One to Coral Sea and other trip to Ribbon Reefs. Both excellent trips.
• Very few overnight trips south of Cairns. Townsville has few but unaware of any in Airlie. Oceania Dive went years ago.
• Some islands like Heron, Lady Elliott or the very expensive Lizard Island have good diving.
• Not dived PNG but have Solomon's. Amazing clarity and wrecks but less fish life due to very little marine park protection.

Suggest try for the far north trips and Yongla.

Don't discount some of the amazing shore dives down the east coast. Lot of challenging and really good wrecks and dive spots (HMAS Brisbane, Seal Rocks etc)

 

[BiSi]

Thanks a lot for your helpful answers!
This pretty much confirms what I was fearing.
We'll think about it and I'll let you know what we ended up doing after our return in February.

BR Bisi

 

[BiSi]

So, already quite some time has passed since our return, but as I promised to report what we ended up doing, here we go: in the end we decided to not focus on the diving too much, as there is a lot to do above the water in Australia as well.
However, we did 2 dives at Julian Rocks off Byron Bay and I have to say they were amazing!! There are sort of "resident" leopard sharks, about a million wobbegongs (the locals just ignored them, for us they were a highlight) and we were even lucky enough to see two mantas
So even though we didn´t get to dive the GBR, we still had 2 wonderful and easy dives - I would definitely recommend Julian Rocks if you get the chance.