Hello,My wife and I are traveling to Cairns in Dec and have booked a 3 day 2 night on one of the Pro-Dive boats. Has anyone been on one of their boats and can you provide any information that may be helpful.I have read a lot of good things, but do you have any reviews of the boat?
I would avoid their operation at all costs. I'm happy to tell you why.
I did 4 liveaboards when I was in Australia. On the third one, I ran into people who had just done the ProDive Cairns 3-day trip. They told me how awful it was, in a number of different ways. In particular, the rather lame rules for how dives are conducted. Given that I had already scheduled a trip with ProDive Cairns, it was my #4 trip, I was thinking, "well - crap!!"
So, I finished my #3 trip and headed to Cairns. Now, keeping in mind that this is my fourth Australia liveaboard in 4 weeks, I definitely have a basis for comparison and I think I'm fair with what I am about to say.
On a positive note - the boat is very nice and more than adequate for its purpose. The food is average, but edible. No complaints really about this end of things.
On a more negative note - I found the crew to be rather rude. In particular, they commented several times about how nice my gear was - regulator, BCD, camera stuff, in a sarcastic sort of way. At one point, one of them said, "I bet you even have one of those blue/green laser pointers don't you." It was all I could do to avoid telling them to just kiss off.
As for the diving itself - it is definitely nothing special. The reefs I saw were mostly bleached out, very shallow, and with practically nothing but very small fish. I did see a couple of turtles and a squid, but everything else amounted to over-sized aquarium fish. Certainly nothing to get too excited about.
Now - for the worst part - the dive rules. They had this lame system where they controlled everything you did, and penalized you if you violated their rules. They were really into the "your next dive must be shallower than your last dive" thing. So, the first dive of the day had a maximum depth of 20m. The dive was 18m, then 16m, then 12m. When you got out of the water, they checked your computer, and if you busted this limit, then they banned you from making the next dive. They were serious about it too. On one dive, I went POINT ONE meters over (0.1M) the "authorized limit" and they banned me from the next dive. I was like ***?? Had I had a second computer on me, there is a good chance it would have recorded a shallower depth - these things are not THAT accurate. Nope - banned for the next dive. Also, there was something else you could do that would get you banned for the rest of the day - but I'm not remembering what that was. I think it was if you violated the max depth limit twice, and for some other reason.
Anyway - between the stupid dive deck rules and rudeness, there is no way I would dive with them again, not even for free. I was so pissed off about being banned for that one dive that I didn't bother making the last dive of the trip either - so for my 3 day trip, I got 10 very average, very ordinary dives.
If it is not too late to change your plans, I would definitely pick a different operator you're going to dive out of Cairns. However - I also think the diving out of Townsville is much, much, much better. I did the Mike Ball 7-day and ProDive Townsville 3-day from there, and both trips were really great. The ProDive Townsville boat is a much smaller boat than the Cairns boat, much more basic - but I still had a better trip with those guys.
Good luck!
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