Diving the Great Barrier Reef

If you’re in Queensland then an obvious must see attraction is the world’s largest living structure – the Great Barrier Reef.

After absolutely loving our diving experiences in Bali and Gili T, we knew that we needed to see the GBR properly and dive it. I was also keen not to go on an absolutely massive boat with hundreds of people, as I’d heard that when everyone jumps in it scares off all the fish. However we also couldn’t afford to pay for the exclusivity of a dive trip with just 10 or so people! So Happy Travels at Global Waterfront hostel in Cairns helped us to find a happy medium trip to go on during our time in Port Douglas. Quicksilver’s Silver Sonic boat had around 60 people on it with max 20 divers and went to Agincourt reef, which is one of the outer sections of the GBR.

It’s important to make sure you go to an outer section – the inner sections are the older ones and many are bleached/dead/dying. You’ll pay more to go further out, but it’s worth it. I’d heard a few negative reviews of the GBR with people saying it’s all dead, but it was so far from it where we went! We saw coral in Indonesia but it was nowhere near the scale of it here – there’s just so much and so many different types! We did three dives and each one was just beautiful. The water is so clear and all the coral and fish are so colourful. We even saw a couple of reef sharks and held a sea cucumber! It was incredible to see such a big structure, with its own ‘valleys’ and ‘cliffs’ – all made from living things.

The experience on Silver Sonic was also really great. Our divemaster Kevin was dead organised so we could enjoy as much of the reef as possible, and he seemed to know just where to look for the sharks and cool stuff! There was only five or six of us in our dive group and the groups seemed to go off in different directions, so most of the time it was just us and the fish! They were also really organised in making sure everyone was back on the boat, which is reassuring when you’re jumping into the ocean with no land in sight! The morning and afternoon tea and buffet lunch with fresh calamari and prawns was also pretty great.

The whole experience with three dives cost us €320 each so it was quite pricey, but it was so worth it. It is cheaper to do this trip if you do less dives or just snorkel, but I definitely recommend the three dives. It was such a fantastic day!