Heron Island is in the Southern Section of Great Barrier Reef, North East off the coast of Gladstone. Gladstone is 534 kilometers north of Brisbane (a 6 hour drive). There is a boat transfer service over to Heron Island and also a helicopter service.

I have a friend who’s been diving from Heron Island and said it was one of the most beautiful places he’s dived. There are over 20 dive sites, so Scuba Divers can easily enjoy up to 3 full dives a day and an occasional night dive too.

Here’s what AusEscapes.com.au say about a Scuba Diving Vacation at Heron Island

“Heron Island Resort is one of the few Queensland island resorts situated right on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It’s what you don’t see around Heron Island that makes the resort so special. You won’t see any buildings above the tree line. And you won’t bump into any daytrippers either. The reef experience on Heron is exclusively for guests, a unique experience few other resorts in the world can offer. There’s a relaxed island lifestyle that sets Heron Island Resort apart, a sophisticated yet casual resort atmosphere. Here the emphasis is on exploring and discovering the natural attractions that have made Heron famous around the world.

You’ll enjoy some of the world’s best reef diving. There’s a choice of spectacular sites just minutes from the beach, and can you imagine a better place to learn to dive? There is no need for day trips to the Great Barrier Reef, because you are already there! So you can easily enjoy 2 dives a day. There are over twenty different dive sites close to Heron Island.

Join a guided reef walk to learn more about the unique ecology of the Great Barrier Reef or snorkel off the beach and come face to face with the kaleidoscope of marine life just below the surface. Enjoy a day trip to explore an uninhabited coral cay or just spend the day lazing by the pool. At night there’s live entertainment, dancing or a quiet drink in the Pandanus lounge. All meals are included in your tariff and the Saturday night seafood buffet comes highly recommended. You’ll find a range of accommodation to suit your budget. As you would expect, Heron Island takes great pride in maintaining their high standards of food and service.”

Diving at Cooke Island is pretty good. This is a story I wrote when we dived there 2 or 3 years ago. Here’s a picture of the island:

We had a great time! The viz was poor, however we still saw lots of stuff. We went with about 5 other people, and Luke led us.

Luke found a couple of turtles sleeping, so gave them a bit of a nudge, and off they swam.

I saw John brushing at something on his head, and afterwards he told me this Damselfish was tapping him on the shoulder, and then came back later on, having a go at his head. He wondered what it was!! These fish are very territorial, so it was just protecting his environment.

Read the rest of this entry »

And, we dived on it!  We were there the day after the 2nd anniversary of it being sunk.  It was very exciting to see the ship and I took some movie of our first dive.  The second dive, we went inside the Engine room, but I didn’t take the camera down for that dive.

The ship was sunk especially for divers to play on, so it was a very easy dive. Very long ship – 33 metres long and the deepest end is only 27 metres.

Here’s the movie I took, can’t see much of me because I haven’t learnt to take good shots of myself yet:-)

I heard some news that sounds Exciting. The Gold Coast council ( in Queensland Australia ) are considering the sinking of a large navy vessel and some other things like old planes, cranes and some other stuff.

If this is done, the Gold Coast Seaway will become one of the best scuba diving spots in Australia, because people can just walk down the rocks to go diving there. Having an artificial reef will make this spot really really popular!!

Here is an article in the Gold Coast Bulletin about Spitting Distance to Best Dive Spot

I am looking forward to seeing this happening!!

Scuba Diving Magazine have a guide to Scuba Diving vacations in Red Sea written by readers of the Magazine. They say that the lack of fresh water flowing into the sea, and the intense evaporation causes the Red sea to be saltier than most. The water is cooler, the seas are choppy , and visibility varies.

They also say here that:

Depending on which part of the Egyptian Red Sea you visit, you can dive shallow patch reefs, deep walls and shipwrecks, but for many divers, the best diving is found on coral ergs. Seamounts, pinnacles or bommies by other names, these coral mountains rise to within feet of the surface, offering shallow coral gardens swarmed by tropical fish and deep coral walls tended by massive pelagics.

Read more on Scuba diving vacation in the Red Sea.

Cozumel is the largest island in the Mexican Caribbean, and is VERY popular for a Scuba Diving vacation. There are many dive shops on the island, so TravelNotes has a website where Scuba Divers can write reviews of the Scuba dive shops they visited while on Scuba Diving Vacation in Cozumel

TravelNotes says this about Scuba Diving Vacation in Cozumel

“What could I expect to see? In Cozumel, there’s so much marine life it’s endless. It has over 16 abundant scuba diving reefs and is known for the second largest reef in the world. It is also known to be the second best dive place in the world. You can see so many varieties of fish from teensy weenie ones to ones the size of a human (groupers). Common and exciting to see are moray eels, nurse sharks (harmless), barracudas, crabs, lobsters, sting rays and the list goes on. Here are a few pictures of actual sightings in Cozumel waters”

More about Scuba Diving Cozumel

As usual, Island Dream has an exciting story to read about a Scuba Diving Vacation Galapagos Island

Ken Knezick writes aobut his adventure aboard Peter Hughes’ new Motor Yacht (M/Y) Sky Dancer live-aboard dive boat. First of all, he describes the islands and the boat, then he warns that diving around the Galapagos Islands is not for beginners. And, he emphasizes that the water is quite cold by Caribbean standards.

Then he goes into much detail about the diving and the immense pelagic animals to be seen, including Galapagos sharks, silky sharks, hammerhead sharks, mobula rays, eagle rays, and the awesome experience of swimming with immense whale sharks.

Read this story about a Scuba Diving Vacation Galapagos Island

by Mark from Seattle.

My cousin and I just returned from our annual dive vacation. This year we chose the Caribbean island of Curacao and we stayed at Habitat Curacao. It was a series of 3 flights just to get there from Seattle, which just sucks. Upon arriving the first thing I notice are the warm, humid temperatures. Paradise at least for 9 days I’m thinking.

After taking a ½ hour taxi ride we get to Habitat and get settled in. Then we make it down to the dive shop(Easy Divers) and introduce ourselves to Anne Marie, who is the dive shop manager. She gives us the tour of the place and shows us where we store our stuff, where/how to get our Nitrox fills, where the boat docks, and where to start the shore dives if we choose to do them.

Then she gives us the final test we have to take for Nitrox, and after we both passed, all we had to do was two dives with Nitrox, and how to properly check our tanks for the proper Nitrox % and write it all down on the log sheet. All in all, it was pretty straightforward. The weather was warm and humid while we there. Temps were between 87 and 95 everyday. The day the temp hit 95 it was too hot, mixed in with the humidity and low winds.

Note: Thanks for all your help with the Nitrox info Skip!

More about a Scuba diving vacation at Curacao

G’day, this is John writing. The great thing about diving down at Byron Bay is it’s always a relaxed and fun atmosphere with the friendly staff ready to jump in and lend a hand and, these guys are a mine of information on all the the local sealife.

Here we are loading up the boat ready for our first dive of the day to the Cod Hole at 9 a.m. New South Wales time ( 8 am our time).

All these photos are taken with the SeaLife DC550

Here we are at the dive site, that’s one of the divers with the skipper checking his air before he drops into the water. Julieanne’s just dropped backwards into the water ( really easy way to get in) and on her way over to the anchor chain. Here I am holding her camera til’ she gets to the anchor chain, I pointed it in the general direction and pushed the button, seeing all that water makes me want to jump in again.

All those bubbles at the front of the photo is someone down there looking to see what the viz is like. We’re all waiting for each other on the surface, it’s pretty choppy. We’re going to descend as a group, that way we all start off with the same amount of air.

Julieanne didn’t want to bounce around on the surface anymore, so we went down first. Read the rest of this entry »

Most people have probably heard of Cairns in the north of Queensland. Port Douglas is about an hour north of Cairns.
Port Douglas – top of Queensland and still part of the Great Barrier Reef.

Undersea Explorer take Scuba Divers to Ribbon Reefs, Cod Hole and Osprey Reef on their LiveAboard boat.

At North Horn, Osprey Reef, where the currents meet, they all see the large schools of tuna, barracuda and sharks – white tips, grey and silver tip whalers, leopard sharks, thresher sharks and schooling hammerheads. There are also Manta Rays.

Undersea Explorer have been studying sharks at Osprey Reef since 1995 and their researchers capture the sharks underwater while guest observe, then bring them to the surface for measurement and tagging. Read more here about a Scuba Diving Vacation on the Undersea Explorer around North East shores of Australia.

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Scuba Diving Vacation Port Douglas