Just back from Cairns

[RalphJr]

I just spent 21 days down under; 12 days were open for diving out of Cairns. We managed to dive 6 of them. The weather had just settled down and the ocean was calm the whole time and the stingers were not in yet. The vis was between 30' and 65' as the reef was in a frisky mood and there was a lot sperm and eggs in the water. Dive day 1: SilverSwift-clean fast boat-Excellent crew we only made one dive because we were flying with Mike Ball the next day and even though it is a low level flight we did not want to push the envelope and we just needed to get our warm water gear dialed in for the upcoming expedition. The site itself was disappointing with a lot of bleaching coral and scarce sea life. I don't know this as a fact but the damage looked like it could have been from human carelessness. We snorkeled the next two sites and were wondering if we had made a mistake by coming to the Great Barrier Reef. I wrote down the dive sites but cannot find the paper- I have it somewhere in all of the memorabilia we brought back!
Dive days 2-4: Mike Ball 3day Fly-Dive live aboard. Everything about this expedition can only be described in superlatives. Starting with the crew - Franchesca the main hostess, Chris the DM and everyone else who's names I don't remember were absolutely Excellent -they really loved their jobs and it showed with a sincerity that made the whole experience most awesome. The Spoil Sport meticulously maintained. The diving was what we were expecting - hoping to find at the reef, pristine coral and abundant sea life. Some of the sites we visited: Cod Hole, Pixie Pinnacle, Pixie Gardens and Steve's Bhomie. The northern reef sites have very little damage from snorkeler's or careless divers. We saw so much that it would be impossible for me to list it here, besides I don't know the names of most of the stuff. On Steve's Bohme I got a picture of a Lacy Scorpion Fish. Trying to post it but won't go? I will try later and continue report later as I have to go now.

 

[RalphJr]

I posted the picture of the Lacy Scorpion Fish in the Gallery Click on Steve's Bhome to see it.
Dive day 5: SilverSonic out of Port Douglas - Fastest Dive boat I have ever been on, state of the art, clean - Great crew. We dove Harry's Reef and Barracuda Bhomie. The reef was healthy and sea life plentiful.
Dive day 6: Calypso out of Port Douglas - Brand new boat - Great Crew. We dove Opal Reef and Tounge Reef. The reef was healthy and sea life plentiful.
Dive tip: Go north out of Port Douglas for healthy reef structure.
Diving was not our only goal for this trip. We saw an opera in the Sydney Opera House, we rode camels to view the sunrise on Ayer's Rock and enjoyed being tourists in the Cairns area. If diving was the only goal a 7 day Mike Ball Adventure would be on my short list. Mike Ball is a must for the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

 

[cstreu1026]

What dates were you on the boat? I just back from there as well. We did the entire 7 day trip (Nov. 9-16).

 

[RonDawg]

I dove both the SilverSonic out of Port Douglas, and the SilverSwift out of Cairns.

After the recommendations here, I was a bit disappointed with the SilverSonic trip to the Agincourt Reefs. Nice, but I didn't think it was a major improvement over my TUSA trip last year out of Cairns. The only advantage was that I got to do 3 dives instead of two, which was good considering one of my dive days had to be scrubbed due to a screw-up by my airline.

The SilverSwift trip wasn't any better, and actually a bit worse. Although it went to the same part of the reef as TUSA, the viz was MUCH worse than last year (and worse than the SilverSonic trip) and the selected dive sites weren't that great.