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!!

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.

Read more about a
Scuba Diving Vacation Port Douglas

Scuba Diving Vacations Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea (PNG) is often called the “land of the unexpected” because it is an exciting, remote and adventurous place to travel. That’s what I’ve heard anyway -my neighbours lived there for many years and have lots of stories.

I’m told that the country possesses some of the best dive spots in the world:
deep or shallow reefs, coral walls, sheer drops, barrier reefs, atolls, passages, lagoons and wrecks. The water is crystal clear.

The large Live Aboard Boat called the Golden Dawn also has 2 rigid hull inflatables which can carry 10 divers to different locations.

Diversion Dive Travel give an overview of Scuba Diving in Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea possesses some of the best dive spots in the world. About twice the amount of fish species as compared to the Red Sea and roughly ten times as many species of corals are found here compared to the Caribbean. PNG has been rating constantly very highly with divers, as is shown by the many awards at international shows and the rodales reader awards.

A very special characteristic for PNG’s diving is the deep water which comes very close to the shore. Only a couple of feet away from the beaches are vertical dropping reef walls which reach down to 1000 feet or more. This can be found on most parts of the northern coastline, on the southern shores of New Ireland and New Hanover (Kavieng area) as well in some areas of the Milne Bay.

In the more sheltered bays delicate coral formation are spreading to enormous size, which cannot be found on barrier reefs. This is typical for Kimbe Bay in West New Britain.
Another fantastic dive destination is the Eastern Fields which is to be found 170 km south west of Port Moresby. Located between Papua New Guinea and Australia, the Eastern Fields are a truly unspoilt part of the Coral Sea.

Another distinguishing feature is the closeness of dive sites to the Islands. Short boat transfers and the additional benefit of the unique South Pacific atmosphere sets the diving in PNG ahead of other popular destinations like the Australian Barrier Reef.

Hundreds of wrecks, many of them W.W.II wrecks are scattered across the nation above and below the waterline. Boats, planes, barges and submarines, some of them still in excellent condition, have been transformed into living coral reefs. Rabaul, Kavieng, Loloata (Port Moresby) and Madang are good places to go for wreck diving.

But it is not only those perfect natural features that make PNG the best place in the world for diving. A small fleet of outstanding live-aboard dive vessels and a number of excellent dive resorts offer outstanding service to divers. Wherever you go in PNG, you will be one of few divers who explore the reefs. PNG is far away from any form of mass tourism.

Walindi Plantation Resort is one popular Scuba Diving resort in Papua New Guinea.

At the Walindi Plantation Resort website, they describe all the different dive sites at Walindi. They have 25 different sites to which they visit regularly from their shore-based dive boats. Here’s what they say about the Coral Reefs around Wallindi.

The coral reefs around Walindi are extraordinarily rich. Over 400 species of reef building corals have been recorded in Kimbe Bay. This is more than half the total number of known coral species in the world. Over 900 species of fish have been recorded and this number will continue to grow as more research is done.

The coral reef communities around Northern New Britain have remained largely undamaged by human activity. We intend to keep it that way. We use moorings where possible to reduce damage from anchoring.

By the way, Walindi has a reputation as one of the world’s prime photo spots, so make sure and take that Scuba Diving Camera.

Sport Diver have a great story about Scuba Diving in Papua New Guinea

Scuba Diving Vacations in Australia - Great Barrier Reef

A Scuba Diving Vacation at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia is something many divers dream about. There are approximately 2,000 individual reefs and 71 coral islands, scattered in the ocean.

OzDive say that Scuba Divers will get the most value if they go on a Live Aboard boat trip, because most of the best spots are quite a distance from the shorelines. They provide a list of Live Aboard Boat Dive Operators here for a

Scuba Diving Vacation at Great Barrier Reef Australia. The list is a great place to start looking and many of them have specials on offer at certain times of the year too.

I started looking at the Tourist like websites, and they’re all so good, and there’s so many, it must be difficult to choose which one to go with. Here’s a Great Barrier Reef Map

I found some reviews of the Great Barrier Reef which have been written by people who’ve been there themselves. Read the reviews about a Scuba Diving Vacation Great Barrier Reef

Scuba Diving vacation a Live Aboard at Moreton Bay.

This is a story about my first Scuba Diving vacation a Live Aboard Trip, and it’s going to be the first of many trips. I loved it!!

Here’s a picture of the boat we went on - The Big Cat Reality.

We arrived at the boat about 9 pm on a Monday night, and loaded all our gear on board. I found a bunk in the “ladies” room - 14 berths in each room downstairs. The crew sleep upstairs in part of the wheel house.

Not much unpacking to do and the beds were all made up. I climbed into bed a couple of hours after the boat took off, wanting to get a good nights sleep ready for diving the next day.

Funny, I’ve never gone to sleep on a boat and I let the movement rock me to sleep.

I was woken up at 1 am by some wierd noise, and thought it must be time to wake up. The boat stopped in a safe haven for a few hours, then at 5:30 am the engines started up and we took off for our first dive spot. I just lay back in bed enjoying the rocking and waiting for the rooster alarm I’d been told about.

The “rooster” came on at 7 o’clock, then music - “who Let the Dogs Out”. It was so funny!!!

Read the rest of the story about a
Scuba Diving vacation Moreton Bay

FISH ROCK CAVE DEPTH 12 TO 24 METRES

The craggy island of Fish Rock is no indication of the splendor that lies underneath. At 120 metres long, and well known as one of the largest ocean caverns in the southern hemisphere, FISH ROCK CAVE has attracted divers worldwide. Enter the deep end of the cave at a depth of 24 metres where thousands of bullseyes hang suspended. Swim into the tunnel entrance over huge wobbegong sharks and a large bull ray resting on the bottom. You will pass by clusters of live cowry shells, a large Spanish dancer, bryozoan lace coral and sea cucumbers to name but a few.

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