Spirit of Freedom Photo & Trip Report

[cricfanSD]

If you are doing a 3 day cruise, there are some severe weight restrictions for the flight out to or from Lizard Island. You will need to rent.

If you are doing the full 7-day cruise, then you don't have any weight restrictions for the cruise itself. It all depends how much weight you want to lug halfway around the world.

My wife and I did the 4 day trip with flying in to Lizard Island and you can definitely bring in the full gear. There is no need to rent. The weight limit is 20 Kgs per person and is enough you pack well.
We flew around East coast of Australia for 17 days and Qantas was very efficient in baggage handling.

 

[ChaiLatte]

Thanks so much for taking all the effort to share with us !! Amazing report with beautiful pictures.

 

[coz7979]

How Funny to find this here Harry.This Was a great trip and a rough one. darn weather. We where so lucky to get out to Osprey Reef. The diving is awesome to say the least and the service.Great pics Harry. From Corry if you remember us and Dive Gear Australia.

 

[Doc Harry]

How Funny to find this here Harry.This Was a great trip and a rough one. darn weather. We where so lucky to get out to Osprey Reef. The diving is awesome to say the least and the service.Great pics Harry. From Corry if you remember us and Dive Gear Australia.

Hey! Whattzup? What luck we had, to arrive in Australia for the only major storm in the "dry season!"

 

[hammerhead man]

Thanks for the extensive review. I will be on the Spirit of Freedom in Jul 2011. I hope we have better weather than you did. Diving the GBR has been a dream of mine for years and I'm really excited about going. How was the food on the boat? You mention that you used one of the boat's wetsuits for part of the trip. How comfortable were they? I use a titanium hyperstretch suit and it is very comfortable but is only 3mm. I also have a 7mm hyperstretch suit but I am thinking that it is too thick for this trip.

Regards,

Bill

 

[Doc Harry]

Thanks for the extensive review. I will be on the Spirit of Freedom in Jul 2011. I hope we have better weather than you did. Diving the GBR has been a dream of mine for years and I'm really excited about going. How was the food on the boat? You mention that you used one of the boat's wetsuits for part of the trip. How comfortable were they? I use a titanium hyperstretch suit and it is very comfortable but is only 3mm. I also have a 7mm hyperstretch suit but I am thinking that it is too thick for this trip.

Regards,

Bill

Hi Bill,

The food on the boat was M-A-R-V-E-L-L-O-U-S. They serve breakfast twice. There is a light cereal, fruit & yogurt breakfast served at about 6 a.m. before the early morning dive. When you return from this first dive, they serve a hearty eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes breakfast. Lunch was a typical soup & sandwich buffet. The dinner meal was always very, very good.

The SOF uses Waterproof wet suits. I believe they were 3mm. If you are not familiar with Waterproof brand, they are very nice. Even with the wet weather that we had, a 3mm was just fine - and I am usually cold unless I'm bundled-up.

 

[SpeckledGrouper]

I can only agree with Harry and recommend the Spirit of Freedom highly. We did the trip last week, had perfect weather and enjoyed every minute of it.
Aside from the awesome weather, the great food and the wonderful crew, the dive sites where pristine and we had a blast.
We are still in Australia, Brisbane at the moment and flying to Sydney tommorrow morning but we are already planning our next trip downunder......

 

[Doc Harry]

This is just a follow-up to my trip report.

We had some frustrating times during the registration process because the Spirit of Freedom required a very detailed (and somewhat unnecessary) doctor's examination and certification for the trip. This examination included seemingly unnecessary things like an audiogram (hearing test).

I just learned that this was mandated by law in Queensland, Australia, and not by the Spirit of Freedom. I have also heard rumors that this law might be changing to more of an American-style system, where the examining physician is more of a risk advisor than a policeman.

So if you eliminate our registration hassles due to the Queensland law, our experience with Spirit of Freedom was perfect.

 

[ygthad]

Great report and Pictures. Thanks

 

[TravisD]

We had some frustrating times during the registration process because the Spirit of Freedom required a very detailed (and somewhat unnecessary) doctor's examination and certification for the trip. This examination included seemingly unnecessary things like an audiogram (hearing test).

I just learned that this was mandated by law in Queensland, Australia, and not by the Spirit of Freedom. I have also heard rumors that this law might be changing to more of an American-style system, where the examining physician is more of a risk advisor than a policeman.

Apologies if this was mentioned elsewhere in the thread, but were you all taking classes as part of the trip? I just booked a trip on the Mike Ball Spoilsport for end of June, and the booking specifically only called for a doctor's sign-off if you checked yes to any of the usual pre-existing dive issues. From the research I've done, an Aussie-compliant physical is still required for taking classes, but not for routing diving by certified divers.