Day Trips in Cairns

[Andrew Jones]

There are no boat transfers anymore with quicksilver from cairns to port douglas, bus is the only way.

Sunkist verses Silversonic......... no comparison. Silversonic every day of the week especially during November because of summer.

all boats r on www.scubadive.com.au

 

[tracy_from_oz]

Thanks for the info Andrew, much appreicated.

 

[BARdiver]

Thanks all for the info, seems Quick Silver is the way to go. I'll be booking it, when I return I'll post how it went.

 

[bathbiggles1]

BAR

Not sure of your dive experience but here is my take.

Cairns is a factory aimed at backpackers. Pile 'em high and sell 'em cheap. There is a heavy German influence in the dayboat diving which means it is efficient and regulated but not much room for fun.

My experience last time was with TUSA Divers and was very poor. The boat was too small with nowhere to put gear. The emphasis is on getting you geared up and in the water and back home as soon as possible. They used 8 litre tanks and literally kicked us off the back of the boat in BCs and Regs that we had never even seen until they were put onto us just before entry on the dive platform. The dive site - Miln Reef was very average.

Take your time to check out the operator you will use is my advice. There may be better ones (I did a 3 day liveaboard with Pro Dive which was fine).

Cheers

 

[slipslop]

i went day diving with tusa. very proffessional and a great day out. I have done 2 trips with quicksilver to each of their 2 pontoons on agincourt reef, while it was an enjoyable day out remember that those big boats can take 400 passengers which makes a very crowded day out. its fine for snorkellers but remember it takes 2 hours to get there, you spend 2.5 hours there and it takes 2 hours to get back.

you could go to Normanby Island with Frankland iskland cruise and dive. its a fantastic day out on a tropical island and your friends could enjoy the shallow reefs around the island while they take whisk you to great dive spots nearby

 

[Penguinboy]

On my recent holiday down under we spent a week in Cairns and had a fantastic Cruise daytrip with "Passions of Paradise". Big comfy catamaran, and they offered an intro dive (herd dive) or a certified dive for those certified (two of us ) with a group of well qualified DMs who were a great friendly bunch. http://www.cairnsholiday.com.au/Whattodo/Cruises/PassionsParadise.htm

On our trip there were two Diving/Snorkelling Sites for us as certified (got away quick before all the beginners!). We made one stop mid ocean on a reef, 15m wall of coral with the bottom at 18m or so - fantastic viewing and lots of wildlife (and deepest dive for me to date!). The next stop was Michaelmas Key - a lovely little sand bar/island where they stopped. Water ranged from 10m to 1m over all the coral so the snorkellers had a field day and wasn't much point divin in some of it! Still plenty to see with the DMs - really nice guys. Turtles, rays, plenty of fish, clams and sea cucumbers and even a Sea Snake for me! Shallow sheltered warm water (24°C in July), with lots to see! Really great bunch and they even gave me and my buddy a De-brief using fish cards of all the wildlife we may have seen, and how coral works (still don't understand )

Passions of Paradise - great people, lovely dive sites and overall lovely day out!

 

[Fordan]

I have done 2 trips with quicksilver to each of their 2 pontoons on agincourt reef, while it was an enjoyable day out remember that those big boats can take 400 passengers which makes a very crowded day out. its fine for snorkellers but remember it takes 2 hours to get there, you spend 2.5 hours there and it takes 2 hours to get back.

There are multiple operations run by Quicksilver. There's the Quicksilver cruises, which is what you described. There are the two boats in the Silver Series (with Silverswift in Cairns) which do much smaller day trips out the the reef for divers and snorklers (no pontoon). That boat has a 80 person capacity, although when I did it, it was a lot fewer.

There's also Prodive Cairns and their liveaboards, which appear to also be owned by Quicksilver.

They have links to all of their operations at http://www.quicksilvergroup.com.au/

 

[RonDawg]

Like slipslop, I went with TUSA back in September '05 and I had a wonderful time. I was lucky in that the boats were less than full. I found them to be a well-run, professional operation.

The reefs, "average" or not were still enjoyable for me. While TUSA does use smaller tanks, on request they will provide the standard Al 80's as they did with me.

The only thing I didn't like was that for the first two of my three days with them, they put me on a primarily Japanese-speaking boat. (Japanese, and not German, seems to be their predominant clientele just like the rest of Cairns). It didn't affect the diving, but it would have been nice to have someone to talk to other than just the boat crew and a couple of non-Japanese divers.

I have no reservations about using TUSA again, though I may try Quicksilver on my next trip just so I can see a different part of the GBR.

 

[bathbiggles1]

Interesting from Slip Slop and Ron on the different experiences from me with TUSA in Cairns.

Whilst being very well administrated (checking and signing forms etc) I thought that their practices were very risky and contradictory. Whilst assuming that everyone is a beginner - thus small tanks and poor service, they also put people into equipment that they have no time to check properly or familiarise themselves with. The briefing was also poor and the logging back onto the boat was full of holes. With around 30 people they didn't know personally this was not good.

I found the whole experience very 'sanitised' but also cursory in the areas that needed close attention.

Admittedly the boat was very full and this meant no room to shelter or stow gear and this may have influenced the procedures. It may also be down to one's own previous experience.

Good to have a balanced view though.

Cheers

 

[RTodd]

Interesting from Slip Slop and Ron on the different experiences from me with TUSA in Cairns.

Whilst being very well administrated (checking and signing forms etc) I thought that their practices were very risky and contradictory. Whilst assuming that everyone is a beginner - thus small tanks and poor service, they also put people into equipment that they have no time to check properly or familiarise themselves with. The briefing was also poor and the logging back onto the boat was full of holes. With around 30 people they didn't know personally this was not good.

I found the whole experience very 'sanitised' but also cursory in the areas that needed close attention.

Admittedly the boat was very full and this meant no room to shelter or stow gear and this may have influenced the procedures. It may also be down to one's own previous experience.

Good to have a balanced view though.

Cheers

That is a fair description of Tusa. Sadly, they are one of the better operators. Cairns day boats are geared solely towards snorkellers and have the ability to provide discover scuba. Rather than run a proper dive op, they adopt silly practices that don't actually contribute to safety and make the diving less than desirable for any remotely experienced diver.