Coral Sea questions ( need help )

[demonic_death]

Hi everyone,

Both Mike Ball and Taka are fully booked for this year's Christmas season.

So while we are still going to Cairns, can you guys suggest a good dive operator that does the GBR day trips?

Another naive question from someone who has never been to Australia. Can you do Coral Sea day trips or is that strictly liveaboard only?

Thanks in advance everyone.

 

[slipslop]

tusa are good. The coral sea cannot be done as a day trip, its way too far. the great barrier reef is a good 2 hour boat ride from Cairns. so even with a day trip you will only be at the reef a maximum of 4 hours. Have you tried pro dive? they do a 3 day 2 night trip to miln and flynn reefs. I did it in 2003 and loved it. I did the taka trip to the coral sea last year. try www.divingcairns.com they list all the liveaboard and day trip operators out of Cairns and Port Douglas with itineraries, prices etc.

 

[Tassie_Rohan]

There are many day trip operators out of cairns and townsville. Most are cattle boats taking large numbers up to of tourists, snorkelers and divers going to the one location (typically a few abused 10-15 metre deep coral bommies). I wouldn't recommend them as the coral sea has some fantasic dives with big sharks and huge walls.

For liveaboards to coral sea and ribbon reefs try:

Nemrod
Sprit of Freedom
Undersea Explorer

They are all good.

They will be detailed in the web site Slipslop listed.

Cheers,
Rohan.

 

[tracy_from_oz]

I would try Quicksilver Services.
You can take a day trip to the reef and dive/snorkel/sub etc or there are boats dedicated for day trip diving to the reef, the Sonic Series from Cairns or Port Douglas.

http://www.quicksilver-cruises.com/


If you go to the Coral Sea you need to a liveaboard and I recommend Taka or Spirit of Freedom.

http://www.spiritoffreedom.com.au/

 

[caymaniac]

Check for boats out of Port Douglas, it is closer to the Coral Sea by alittle. Near Lizard Island we found diving quite good, not as good as the Coral Sea, but close. The viz. at the Coarl Sea sites such as Osprey Reef will beat many of the Ribbons and GBR sites. Also we were able to see flashlight fish in the reef at night on reefs in the Coral Sea. As others have stated, Taka or Spirit of Freedom would be other excellent options. We used a QuickSilver boat..5nights in Coral Sea. The one boat we saw saw at Osprey was the Spirit of Freedom and off Lizard we were near the Mike Ball boat.