PADI AOW training - liveaboard

[tom_guy]

This year my partner and I are planning on travelling to Townsville for Christmas to spend time with her family. I saw the oppoutunity to get Advanced Open Water qualifications on a liveaboard for a few days before I spend a week of my valued annual leave with infants and unbearable hot weather.

Having done a bit of research I found the following companies operate out of Cairns (I know its not Townsville) and was wondering if anybody has any experience with them???

PRO DIVE - Scuba Diving, Australia, Great Barrier Reef
Cairns Diving, Scuba Diving Great Barrier Reef with Deep Sea Divers Den Cairns, Australia

If so was the experience good, bad, ugly, fantastic...etc? Would you go with them again...etc?

 

[livinoz]

Can't help you here mate as I've never done the liveaboard thing, but I'm sure someone will have that information for you.

 

[aMc10]

Prodive are one of the bigger operators in the area and I'm sure they operate out of Townsville as well as Cairns (and Port Douglas, for that matter). I don't have any experience with them myself, but I haven't heard anything bad about them.

I went out with the Nimrod explorer from Cairns at the end of last year and would happily recommend it. It's not too luxurious, but it was good value for money, the crew were great and we had some awesome dives. They also offer advanced open water courses.

 

[tom_guy]

I went out with the Nimrod explorer from Cairns at the end of last year and would happily recommend it. It's not too luxurious, but it was good value for money, the crew were great and we had some awesome dives. They also offer advanced open water courses.

Nimrod Explorer looks good! A little bit pricey, but it is a much smaller boat than the other ones I was looking at (From what I can gather smaller boats have better diving). I'll have to get a price off them for AOW training.

Which tour did you do with them aMc10?

 

[Damselfish]

I would try and do a trip to at least the Cod hole area, if not the Coral Sea. We recently did the Taka Cod Hole trip. Cod Hole itself didn't do much for me but condition of the reefs further north in the ribbon reefs were SO much better than the dives we did closer to Cairns, where there are a lot of big boats running. (yeah, one of these days I will get around to doing a report.)

A liveaboard in the 20 passenger range is definitely going to be a different experience than the 50 passenger ones.

 

[Andrew Jones]

There is a liveaboard in Townsville that will do your Advanced on a liveaboard 4 you.

10 dives doing Wheeler reef and also yongalla Wreck.

It is Padi Cert.

Boats crappy but the diving great. Christmas is a great time to be in the water because its going to be stinkin hot.

Cheers Andy

 

[aMc10]

Nimrod Explorer looks good! A little bit pricey, but it is a much smaller boat than the other ones I was looking at (From what I can gather smaller boats have better diving). I'll have to get a price off them for AOW training.

Which tour did you do with them aMc10?

Looks like they don't do the itinerary I did last year any more. If you check their website, it was kindof across between itineraries 1&2 i.e 5 days 4 nights to the Ribbon Reefs and Cod Hole, leaving from Cairns, returning to Cooktown with a low-level flight back to Cairns.

When I was looking around, I didn't find them especially pricey compared to anyone else. If you're prepared to take a risk, and have some flexibility with the dates, you could wait till you get there as there are substantial savings to be made with standby and last minute bookings. When I went out last year (also at Christmas, BTW), there were only 12 out of a possible 18 passengers on board. I have to say, it'd have been pretty crowded had it been full.

 

[tom_guy]

There is a liveaboard in Townsville that will do your Advanced on a liveaboard 4 you.

10 dives doing Wheeler reef and also yongalla Wreck.

It is Padi Cert.

Boats crappy but the diving great. Christmas is a great time to be in the water because its going to be stinkin hot.

Cheers Andy

This may save us an extra trip to Cairns. Do you know the name of the boat?

Thanks to everyone for the feedback. Good to see a few other Aussies here.

Tom

 

[livinoz]

There are a couple here with information for contacting them:

www.diveoz.com.au - List Liveaboard Boats

 

[marcy]

we are going with Mike Ball Expeditions out of Cairnes in about 3 weeks. I will give you any info. from that trip when we return. We chose them because we believe that the crew on a live aboard is a big part of what makes or breaks your trip, and we read lots of good comments about Mike Ball on scuba sites and magazines. We hope we made a good choice - as it is expensive.
Marcy