Spirit of Freedom Photo & Trip Report

[SubMariner]

Thanks for the great report!

We did SOF in 2006; good to see they are still a first-rate liveaboard.

 

[divin'dog]

August 2, 2010

The boat docked back at the port of Cairns at about 6:00 a.m. We disembarked a couple of hours later. Jackey and I went back the All Season Cairns Hotel. Exhausted, we did very little except sleep and laundry.

REFLECTIONS

My only other extensive reef diving experience has been in the Florida Keys and Cozumel. Clearly, the Great Barrier Reef is the place to see large animals such as sharks, whales and giant clams. However, both Jackey and I felt that the reefs at Cozumel were much prettier than the Great Barrier Reef.

The night dives in Cozumel were much better, too. On the Great Barrier Reef you are followed around by large fish such as trevally, who gobble up everything within reach of your light. We really didn’t see much at night on the Great Barrier Reef except trevally. Contrast that with the dozens of sea horses, squid, crabs, and octopus that we usually see in Cozumel at night.

All in all, it was a wonderful experience and both Jackey and I will repeat the adventure in the future.

Great report! Great photos! I feel like I went with you... Nice to have a point of reference too using Cozumel. I'm thinking of getting on a Spirit of Freedom trip and this was really helpful.

As far as air and nitrox, it is strange that you either had to dive air or nitrox all week. There are times I like to dive air and other times dive nitrox... Why is there no choice once you decide at the beginning?

 

[Doc Harry]

Why is there no choice once you decide at the beginning?

You'll have to ask SOF. My guess is that it would be too difficult to constantly keep track of the preferences of 26 divers 3 and 4 times daily. If divers were switching between air and Nitrox, the staff would be constantly carrying cylinders up and down ladders, then they would have to figure out who's gear was where, swap out the BC and regs, etc. In the small confines of the ship, with so many divers moving around, it would really turn into a C.F.

 

[divin'dog]

Thanks Harry! Very helpful. Couple more questions... hope you don't mind.

Were you allowed to dive on your own (w/buddy of course) to your own profiles and not follow a DM? Were you allowed to dive mostly at any time you wanted or were there set times to dive and were you allowed to do as many dives as you wanted?

 

[MA]

Hi Divin Dog,

I've been on spirit a few times. You dive unguided, unless you want to follow a guide. There are set dive times to make sure you get your 4/5 dives in a day and to allow for moving sites, but i can't recall having a time limit set. They do set the max number of dives - 4 or 5. Would be pretty tough on the body doing more than 5 in a day. Note on my last trip my average bottom time was 55-60min per dive so you get plenty of hours underwater in a day.

They do set limits, such as no reverse profiling on the multiple dives and you must be back on the boat with 50bar.

 

[Doc Harry]

Thanks Harry! Very helpful. Couple more questions... hope you don't mind.

Were you allowed to dive on your own (w/buddy of course) to your own profiles and not follow a DM? Were you allowed to dive mostly at any time you wanted or were there set times to dive and were you allowed to do as many dives as you wanted?

There's a dive master but the dive master doesn't dive, except for when someone is taking a class. The dive master sets the mooring and tag lines, etc. You're on your own in the water. You can hire a dive guide for the trip, but it's on your dollar. There were no guides during my cruise. But they did brief you quite thoroughly before each dive, and made recommendations on where to go and what to see.

The ship was always moving from one place to another. The ship would moor at a dive site, and everyone goes diving. As soon as everyone is back aboard, the ship casts off the mooring line and sails away to another location.

 

[MA]

Hi, just on Doc Harry's comments, whilst there are no official 'guides' there are always 2 crew in the water. Each dive, all divers are asked if they would like to go follow the one of the crew members or do their own dive. Inexperienced divers are asked to go with a crew member for at least the first few dives.

I just wanted to include that in case there were any divers considering the trip and weren't ready to dive unguided.

Cheers,

MA

 

[Eau_Girl]

Ditto on MA's comments. I went on the SOF in April 2008. There was always at least one instructor and another crew member in the water on each dive. The first half of the trip there were only 8 of us on the trip -- one Japanese couple that had a private guide.

The second half the boat was full -- we had some new divers and others with issues requiring some extra supervision so the had crew in to make sure everyone stayed safe. However, experienced divers were not required to follow a guide.

I seem to recall that on most dives we were asked to limit times to about 60 minutes. They weren't super strict and most of my dives were a bit over that.

 

[divin'dog]

That's great... sounds like my kind of diving.

 

[MA]

and if you like 1000m walls, blue abyss and pelagics you'll be in a for a real treat!