Healthy reef on GBR?

[tamas970]

I am still undecided on my 2017 diving trip, my travel dates shifted to May. I looked up multiple destinations, here is my shortlist. Investing a lot of time (flying from Europe) and a fair amount of money, I want to avoid dead reefs (Only 7% of the Great Barrier Reef has avoided coral bleaching – ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies ).

#1: Abrolhos islands, WA: looks interesting, but so far I found one single operator offering only 3day-trips.
#2: Southern parts of the GBR (still need to find a reasonably priced operator)
#3: Bali, Indonesia

Any thoughts/suggestions? How bad is the damage on the reefs accessible by dayboats from Cairns?

 

[Aquapro Dive Services]

I think the other thread you have posted on covers the subject of the bleaching already.

From a Cairns local point of view, overnight / live aboard trips will take you further way and will have more selection of unmanaged areas. Most day trip boats will visit sites that will have had some impact of bleaching.

There are some good value operators running out of Cairns but it depends on what you want. Again tons of posts here have already outlined the answers, but look at Mike Ball or Sprit of Freedom for the best diving (Ribbon Reefs). Best 3 for Outer Reef (closer to Cairns but with a good selection of Reef areas to avoid massively bleached sections) Ocean Quest, Scubapro or Kangaroo Explorer. KEX the cheapest of the bunch.

 

[tamas970]

Thanks for the links! The sites these boats visit (Norman, Saxon, Hastings & Pellowe, Milln, Thetford, Flynn) are in the central zone, probably affected, maybe I should look something more to the south. What about the (quite turistic) Whitsundays area? (probably served from Mackay)

 

[WetPup]

Whitsundays are visited from Airlie Beach (Proserpine Airport if you need to Google that), or from one of the islands nearby. The diving there is very...meh. Even before any issues related to bleaching, the whole Whitsundays region has been hammered by heavy tourism and development for nearly 30 years, and the reefs are suffering the consequences of that.

As mentioned by Aquapro, you're still best off visiting the reefs off Cairns. You need to understand that the boats aren't going to take you to sites with heavy bleaching. The skippers know the situation, and are hardly going to take you to somewhere with mostly dead coral - it does nobody any favours.

 

[Aquapro Dive Services]

There are no diving operations out of Mackay. Whitsundays is more renown for sailing trips with diving as an extra activity, rather than dedicated dive trips. Whitsundays is service out of Airlie Beach.

Consider the Yongala out of Ayr if you are travelling down that way as its one of the best dives around with spectacular life and not affected at all by bleaching.

 

[Spudlet]

Maybe you could try Lord Howe Island, a m8 of mine said the best diving he has done in Australia
Pro Dive Lord Howe Island. A unique diving experience..

Diving Lord Howe Island

It is
Definitely on my hit list as great fishing, diving and even surfing there

 

[tamas970]

Thanks fot your thoughts, Whitsundays are out then, Lord Howe is interesting, it is really off the beaten track . The complication is, that I am not only for diving in Australia, a Lord Howe trip would mean another flight within the trip, but I'll give it a thought.

Anyway, not dismissed the idea of a "normal Cairns trip", trusting the skippers skills, spotting the living parts of the reef... I was thinking on the southernmost Swain sector, but it's a long way to steam (~150miles from the shore), I haven't found any liveaboards going there.

 

[Tbar]

How about Heron Island Great Barrier Reef Resort | Accommodation | Heron Island Resort or Lady Eliot Island Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort Great Barrier Reef both sites are a lot further south.

 

[tamas970]

How about Heron Island Great Barrier Reef Resort | Accommodation | Heron Island Resort or Lady Eliot Island Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort Great Barrier Reef both sites are a lot further south.

The Heron resort seems out of budget, but Lady Eliot is interesting and I found some liveaboards departing from Gladstone to Heron as well (thus transfer solved...)

 

[Derelict]

Contrary to what the media are saying, most of the reefs are still healthy enough from a scuba divers perspective. You'll still find the diversity and the abundance of marine life at most of the sites. When I did a 25 dive week long liveaboard the worst two sites were damaged by a cyclone and crown of thorns starfish, not bleaching.