Diving on the Spirit of Freedom in March 2026, few questions for you guys (Other suggetions?)

[TT_Vert]

We are going to do a 5 day w/ them as their reviews are pretty good here. For those of you who dove w/ them, did they provide a group guide? I see pro dive does not (You can pay for one) and I would like the expertise of a local to show us what we likely would miss. Aside from this, we are going to do the Kuranda Wildlife Experience. Are there any other must see/do things? In the outer reefs are box jellyfish an issue in March requiring a stinger suit? My BPW setup is pretty well refined for my 3mil shorty (I use no weights and am just a bit negative at 500psi w/ an AL80). The buoyancy of this will be a concern I will need to calculate towards the end of the dive. It appears they have different thickness stinger suits but are they basically just a full length neoprene wetsuit? If so, I guess I could opt for a 1mil full length stinger in lieu of my 3mil shorty.

Thanks much,

Dave

 

[MB NZ]

A stinger suit is usually just lycra. In your situation, I would either hire or buy a 3mm full length wetsuit. Otherwise, I would wear your 3mm shorty over the stinger suit. Check water temperatures for the time you are visiting and cross reference to your temperature tolerance.

My recommendations for the area. All need a car if staying in Cairns apart from the night markets and the aquarium.

1) Cairns Night Markets
Very touristy, but kind of fun.

2) Hartley's Crocodile Adventures
Pretty touristy, but worth it.

3) Kuranda Scenic Railway
Worth it for the train ride. Kuranda itself is very touristy, but nice enough for a coffee or a beer. Get the skyrail down.

4) Mossman Gorge
Easy, day walking in the rain forest and river swimming (no crocodiles!).

5) Cane toad racing at Chilly's, Port Douglas
Not sophisticated entertainment! Drink beer and race toads!

6) Self-drive boat hire Port Douglas

https://www.tripadvisor.co.nz/Attraction_Review-g255070-d4325353-Reviews-Port_Douglas_Boat_Hire-Port_Douglas_Queensland.html

Independent fishing (tackle supplied) and croc spotting!

7) Cairns Aquarium
A pleasant enough way to spend an afternoon if you haven't seen enough fish when diving.

 

[Aquapro Dive Services]

Cairns local dive pro here and agree eurh everything MB_NZ said. Lots to do in Cairns and surrounding area and way too much to list all.

Trip to the Tablelands self drive or Wait a While tours very good. (Google Tablelands, Lake Eacham etc) drop me a DM if need more info on the area but Googke things to do will give it all.

As for SOW they don't provide guides. Crew in the water you can follow if needed and very well briefed.

Outer Reef tours offer 5mm shortie or Lycra stinger suits between stinger season Oct to May. Just take extra couple of weights if yr worried. All 10 or 12L aluminium tanks, so get lighter end of dive.

 

[SteveCapnK]

We are going to do a 5 day w/ them as their reviews are pretty good here. For those of you who dove w/ them, did they provide a group guide?

I went on the 3 day Spirit of Freedom last December.

While they might not provide a “guide” we always dived with a crew member, and so it’s pretty easy to follow them around, and they’re likely to be pointing out interesting things.
I guess their primary job in the water is the safety of the passengers, but at the end of the day they want the passengers to have a good experience.
And they’re divers too! I’m sure they’d rather have a fun dive finding cool stuff.

 

[TT_Vert]

Cairns local dive pro here and agree eurh everything MB_NZ said. Lots to do in Cairns and surrounding area and way too much to list all.

Trip to the Tablelands self drive or Wait a While tours very good. (Google Tablelands, Lake Eacham etc) drop me a DM if need more info on the area but Googke things to do will give it all.

As for SOW they don't provide guides. Crew in the water you can follow if needed and very well briefed.

Outer Reef tours offer 5mm shortie or Lycra stinger suits between stinger season Oct to May. Just take extra couple of weights if yr worried. All 10 or 12L aluminium tanks, so get lighter end of dive.

Yeah I'm starting to wonder if doing a liveaboard in this situation is worth it. We'll be spending about 3K each for (maybe)15 dives over 4 days and still need to get AOW before (We don't want to spend the time on the boat doing the bookwork and aren't really keen on doing it before). Atop that, with it being cyclone season and no refunds if it's cancelled, I'll have to pay a good amount for travel insurance adding further expense.

Quite frankly, we don't even want AOW as we are primarily just well skilled rec divers who have had no desire (Over the last 16 years of diving) to do more than blue water diving <100' usually. Never once have we been questioned if we were AOW on dives >60'. In your opinion, is the added expense on the LOB worth it in this case? If we do day trips, we would not need to do AOW, we'd have a guide and we'd also likely be spending a whole lot less. If people say the LOB is well worth it for dive quality, I'll spend the cash but I'd hate to do all of that to have very similar diving. We don't like cattle boats but in every situation we've dove a less well trained boat of tourists, the guide recognized our dive abilities and left us to our own devices to follow them.

The LOB requires AOW which we are not. We've done a good amount of dives of any type we'll do with them but I do understand their requirement. We've done a few weeks of shore dives in Bonaire so we can easily plan our own dives but from talking w/ them I have felt like for the most part we go down and are on our own. I generally like this but at the same time the local divers know what hides where. They have mentioned if there is an unexperienced group, we could follow them. I've never seen an "unexperienced" group on a LOB so I feel like that situation would not occur.

As far as weight, that's just it, I have a stainless plate (~7#) and do not carry lead and have no desire to. My wing also has something like 17# of lift (Enough for my current rig, but adding weight would compromise that). Adding weight due to additional exposure protection buoyancy isn't something I want to do. I'm slightly negative w/ an AL80 at 500psi (actually down to 250 if I recall). w/ my 3mil shorty. How buoyant are stinger suits?

I went on the 3 day Spirit of Freedom last December.

While they might not provide a “guide” we always dived with a crew member, and so it’s pretty easy to follow them around, and they’re likely to be pointing out interesting things.
I guess their primary job in the water is the safety of the passengers, but at the end of the day they want the passengers to have a good experience.
And they’re divers too! I’m sure they’d rather have a fun dive finding cool stuff.

That's odd, as they told me "Spirit of Freedom does not offer a full guided dive service. Our Safety Divers are assigned to those divers who are at risk or to assist students."

I'm not opposed to this, it's just nice to be able to have the knowledge of the locals.

 

[TT_Vert]

I went on the 3 day Spirit of Freedom last December.

While they might not provide a “guide” we always dived with a crew member, and so it’s pretty easy to follow them around, and they’re likely to be pointing out interesting things.
I guess their primary job in the water is the safety of the passengers, but at the end of the day they want the passengers to have a good experience.
And they’re divers too! I’m sure they’d rather have a fun dive finding cool stuff.

That's odd, as they told me "Spirit of Freedom does not offer a full guided dive service. Our Safety Divers are assigned to those divers who are at risk or to assist students."

I'm not opposed to this, it's just nice to be able to have the knowledge of the locals.

A stinger suit is usually just lycra. In your situation, I would either hire or buy a 3mm full length wetsuit. Otherwise, I would wear your 3mm shorty over the stinger suit. Check water temperatures for the time you are visiting and cross reference to your temperature tolerance.

My recommendations for the area. All need a car if staying in Cairns apart from the night markets and the aquarium.

1) Cairns Night Markets
Very touristy, but kind of fun.

2) Hartley's Crocodile Adventures
Pretty touristy, but worth it.

3) Kuranda Scenic Railway
Worth it for the train ride. Kuranda itself is very touristy, but nice enough for a coffee or a beer. Get the skyrail down.

4) Mossman Gorge
Easy, day walking in the rain forest and river swimming (no crocodiles!).

5) Cane toad racing at Chilly's, Port Douglas
Not sophisticated entertainment! Drink beer and race toads!

6) Self-drive boat hire Port Douglas

https://www.tripadvisor.co.nz/Attraction_Review-g255070-d4325353-Reviews-Port_Douglas_Boat_Hire-Port_Douglas_Queensland.html

Independent fishing (tackle supplied) and croc spotting!

7) Cairns Aquarium
A pleasant enough way to spend an afternoon if you haven't seen enough fish when diving.

Thanks. The scenic railway is certainly on the list as I'm a train junkie. Wish it was steam but beggars can't be choosers

As far as the exp. protection I'd likely just go stinger/3mil shorty as I'm just slightly negative at 250-500psi. With that said, I generally start to get cold around 79-80F on longer dives (50-75 mins in). Researching march water temps there it seems they are ~80F, is that accurate? is there any thermocline there?

 

[MB NZ]

Yeah I'm starting to wonder if doing a liveaboard in this situation is worth it. We'll be spending about 3K each for (maybe)15 dives over 4 days and still need to get AOW before (We don't want to spend the time on the boat doing the bookwork and aren't really keen on doing it before). Atop that, with it being cyclone season and no refunds if it's cancelled, I'll have to pay a good amount for travel insurance adding further expense.

Only you can decide it it's worth it or not taking in to account all the factors you have mentioned. For my own part, I consider liveaboard trips to be good value for money once accommodation, food, quality and number of dives is taken in to account.

 

[TT_Vert]

Only you can decide it it's worth it or not taking in to account all the factors you have mentioned. For my own part, I consider liveaboard trips to be good value for money once accommodation, food, quality and number of dives is taken in to account.

I was more referring to the quality of dives/locations day trip vs. LOB.

 

[MB NZ]

I was more referring to the quality of dives/locations day trip vs. LOB.

My guess is that you will get to better sites on the liveaboard, but it's going to be dependent on weather conditions on the day.

 

[Aquapro Dive Services]

Yeah I'm starting to wonder if doing a liveaboard in this situation is worth it. We'll be spending about 3K each for (maybe)15 dives over 4 days and still need to get AOW before (We don't want to spend the time on the ........

Lot of questions and might be better to DM, but quick answer is because of the depth of the sites and often more challenging, the level of AOW is requested. However, if you can show extensive evidence of deeper diving etc and you're regular diver, then should be fine. We used to accept that.
Also only need Deep Adventure Dive or equivalent not full AOW.

Ribbon Reef trips much more varied dive sites and better than Outer Reef. Main expense is because you fly up one way and motor back.

Outer Reef still good options.

As for gear that's a personal choice and really if your used to your gear, it should not a problem to work out your buoyancy on first dive or just prior. If you've dived places like Bonair it's same set up.

When are you looking to travel by the way cos few options out there is could suggest depending what time if year?