Oceania Live-aboard

[Great Lakes Dvr.]

Heading for Australia this May for our 10th wedding anniversary and planning on doing some diving on the GBR. We booked our trip through "Aussie Walkabouts" and their scuba portion of the trip puts us on the Oceania, operated by the Whitsunday Scuba Center. This will be our first saltwater diving experience as well as our first dive boat experience. The itenerary has us visiting the continental shelf at the outer edge of the GBR, as well as Elizabeth and Stucco reef (from what I've read on their website). I was wondering if anyone has had any diving experiences on this particular live-aboard that they would be willing to share so that we kind of know what to expect.

Anyhow I'm sure it's going to be an amazing experience for my wife and I, and am extreamly excited about the trip! :scubadive Thanks in advance for any input....

 

[DiverDebbie]

I did the 3 day/3 night trip aboard the Oceania with my brother last March. It left out of Airlie beach, so it sounds like the same trip you're taking. It was a rough overnight trip out to the outer reef, (so bring your gravol!) but when we got there there wasn't another boat or land in site for 3 days! It was awesome. The crew were great, the food fabulous and the dives amazing... lotsa them. They had us in the water at 6:30 am! Saw so much great life. They moved the boat around the reefs so we never dove the same site twice, and they put us in with the "tender" and gave us a tow back when we'd surfaced. Compared to shore diving here, I loved being so spoiled

I have some pictures here in my "diving great barrier reef" folder, if you'd like to check them out. I didn't have a fancy camera for underwater, but it'll give you an idea.

http://community.webshots.com/user/debinoz