In the evening we meet at 6:00 p.m. at the jetty and are warmly welcomed. The spoilsport is ready and the cabins can be occupied. First there is a glass of bubbling water as a welcome. Then comes the briefing on all kinds of safety regulations and the diving procedure is also explained. Then the captain Peter, a sea dog, speaks, as he is in the book. We can’t take the planned route because the weather is too bad. There is too much wind, so it won’t be with the outer reef. So the tour goes to the inner reef, we are a bit disappointed at first, but it was a great tour in the end. During the night we drive further north to reef number 10.
The Diving Area
Stretches from Summer Bay to Cod Hole
Friday
In the morning we start early, but we are not ready until 9 o’clock, there were again many instructions and then jump in the water. On Friday we have three dive sites on the day’s schedule. Summer Bay, Steve’s Bommie, Clam Beds. We skip the night dive, 3 dew cycles for the first day are enough. The wind makes a lot of waves and the movement in the water limits the visibility considerably, which then also makes it difficult to take pictures. Our cook June conjures up really good food from the galley, we are doing great.
Saturday
Saturday morning starts at the Coral Kingdom a lot of great corals, as the name suggests. Then we continue to the Two Towers, according to our marine biologist Pablo, the best dive site in the world. He is not wrong, but he has never been to North Sulawesi ????. Schools of blue-striped snappers, hunting barracudas and much more. Then we continue at Challanger Bay during the day more of an ordinary dive site and at night all hell breaks loose, we hunt for all it’s worth. Whitetip reef sharks, mackerel, tuna and much more. They all come to the light from our dive lights, they rush in from all sides. One of the best night dives we have ever had.
Sunday
In the night to Sunday it rocks heavily and we have our first dive at Cod Hole, usually THE dive site in the area, if it hadn’t been for the current from all sides… The Lighthouse Bommie is like a walk afterwards, we have open deck, which means that there is a big time window for diving. We only want to dive once, so we rest a bit. Marita, the tour director, tells us that she makes two groups to jump in, because the dive site is rather none. When everyone came back, we jump in and we were alone at the dive site. So it’s fun, when our dive chamber members realize what we are doing, they congratulate us on the good decision. The last dive is Pixie Garden, quite nice corals, but otherwise not much going on.
Here is the video of the dive sites, attention it goes 10 minutes, so it takes some time.
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BBQ Party
The twelve different nationalities get along well. Our colleagues come from England, Australia, Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand, Canada, America, Germany, Belgium, France and Korea. Oh yes, and there were also two from Switzerland.
Especially Richard the American is eternally grateful to us because we found his GoPro on the surface after a dive. Our captain Peter is also a really good singer and Ricardo the First Mate is a good griller. We get an Australian BBQ, it was very tasty.
Afterwards there will be a video of our tour to marvel at, Pablo is also a great photographer, in a few days we can download his pictures and videos and publish them here. Many thanks to Mike Ball Dive Expeditions. The whole crew was very helpful and always up for a joke. We can only recommend the tour, everything was very well organized.
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Lizard Island
In the morning we are taken to the beach in the rubber dinghies, soon we go on to the airport, well a small covered waiting room and a cord separates us from the plane. The flight back over the reef was nice, unfortunately you didn’t understand a word of the pilot’s comments.
Lizard Island Airport and the flight to Cairns
A bit tired we arrive safely in Cairns and the ground shakes under our feet for quite a while.