PAPD:
I will be traveling to Cairns in a week. Most travel books I read mention you dive WITHOUT a guide at the GBR. Is this true? and being only Open Water cert. without any solo exp. should I get an advance cert. first?
We talking solo diving here? By your lonesone? or solo as in you and your buddy will be doing your own thing?
If it's the former, advanced training is not going to teach you how to dive solo. And personally, I don't think solo training teaches you enough to make solo diving as safe as buddy diving, especially in new and unfamiliar territory. I have never been diving in Australia, BTW.
If it's the latter, I think you're still better off getting a guide, at least for a day or two, in any new environment.
But as for solo diving, buddy diving is always better and safer than solo no matter where you are.
There are courses that offer training explicity for solo diving and there are people who think that solo diving, with the correct training, can be done safely. But even if that were true, I don't think any new diver should consider it, even
after such a course until he/she has a lot of dives under his/her belt.
Because SCUBA diving is done in a low-oxygen environment, there is no substitute for experience.
. . . and then still dive with a buddy.
JoeL