Port Douglass Dive Tours for Beginners

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Location
California, USA
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Hi everyone,

I and my boyfriend and are newly certified PADI open water. We will be in Port Douglas in January 2018 and look for recommendations. We are interested in a small group dives and/or a private tour (just for 2 of us), not deep, but enjoyable dive (up to 65 feet/20 meters). We would like dive guide/instructor to be with us during all the dive because we are newly PADI certified and do not feel comfortable yet to go underwater without a supervision.

In addition, we will very appreciate the information about the area. I checked online and, to be honest, I am very confused. People are talking about different reefs and different boats with 50 to 450 people on board. How crowded are the boats and dive sites? Is it one big reef or several reefs that calls GBR in general?

Any other activities are recommended in Port Douglas? I've read that a helicopter 30-minute tour above the GBR is nice and rainforest day trip is popular as well.

All recommendations will be highly appreciated.
 
AquaQuest is a brand new dive boat in Port Douglas that visits 3 dive sites and up to 60 passengers. There is also Silverswift and Poseidon that depart Port Douglas, and visit 3 dive sites. Cape Tribulation is about 2 hours drive north, well worth visiting the world's oldest Rainforest the Daintree, you can go Jungle Surfing! Mossman Gorge is 20 mins drive from Port is a beautiful spot for a walk and swim.
 
Hi everyone,

I and my boyfriend and are newly certified PADI open water. We will be in Port Douglas in January 2018 and look for recommendations. We are interested in a small group dives and/or a private tour (just for 2 of us), not deep, but enjoyable dive (up to 65 feet/20 meters). We would like dive guide/instructor to be with us during all the dive because we are newly PADI certified and do not feel comfortable yet to go underwater without a supervision.

In addition, we will very appreciate the information about the area. I checked online and, to be honest, I am very confused. People are talking about different reefs and different boats with 50 to 450 people on board. How crowded are the boats and dive sites? Is it one big reef or several reefs that calls GBR in general?

Any other activities are recommended in Port Douglas? I've read that a helicopter 30-minute tour above the GBR is nice and rainforest day trip is popular as well.

All recommendations will be highly appreciated.
I was there a few months ago and booked 2 days with 'divers den' more than happy with the trip they ran but I have heard that if you wait until the last minute you can book and get a a hefty discount- of course that may mean you'll miss out if theres no spots available so its a risk if you may not want to take mossman gorge is interesting and its only a few dollars also a trip on the train up to ( i think its called Kakadu) is interesting and come back on the gondola thing ( sky trail)
 
I was there a few months ago and booked 2 days with 'divers den' more than happy with the trip they ran but I have heard that if you wait until the last minute you can book and get a a hefty discount- of course that may mean you'll miss out if theres no spots available so its a risk if you may not want to take mossman gorge is interesting and its only a few dollars also a trip on the train up to ( i think its called Kakadu) is interesting and come back on the gondola thing ( sky trail)

Yes!! Travel to Kuranda on the Sky Rail, apparently Sky Rail inspired James Cameron's Avatar movie.
 
A couple of years ago some friends and I were preparing for a liveaboard trip on the GBR, and we took a one day, 3-tank dive on one of the huge dive boats that service that area. The entire trip was very much geared to beginning divers. They divided us into groups, with no regard to your previous diving experience. On the way out, each group got a briefing that came very close to repeating the content of the entire OW course. Just about everyone used rental gear--my friends and I were the only ones I saw bringing on our own equipment. When I told our DM that I would be donating my primary regulator in case of an OOA emergency and showed her my gear (a setup commonly used by more advanced divers around the world), she was baffled. She had never seen anything like it, and she had to confer with her superiors to see if it could be allowed. After that, one staff member after another came to see my gear and marvel at that novelty.

The dives were all very shallow and very easy. The groups each went their own way, so during the dive, you had an experience similar to being on a small boat.

In summary, these trips are all very much set up for new or inexperienced divers, and you should have no problems with whatever you choose.
 
Even the close in reefs at Port Douglas are a long boat ride from the dock. A two/three tank dive is going to be an all day affair. I think you may be hard pressed to find a boat willing to take you out there at a cost that would be acceptable to you, and it might be a pretty bumpy ride in a small boat. Most of the boats I saw on my stop there two years ago were large and well populated, as others above have described, and several docked at large, floating covered platforms which served as the launchpad for divers, snorkelers, and food/beverage service. In addition, I found the reefs that we visited to be far less spectacular than the best Caribbean destination like Bonaire, Coz, GC, and Roatan. Hopefully you will be much less underwhelmed than we were on that small part of the GBR. Like Boulderjohn, my dive buddy/wife and I were the only ones on the boat to have our own gear, but found the rental gear to be in pretty good shape. However, getting the proper size fins was a problem for a few of the divers/snorkelers at the end of the line for equipment rental.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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