Cairns, October 1997

The flight from Broome to Cairns wasn't exactly by the most direct route possible. First the plane went to Kununurra and then Darwin. This wasn't too bad, given that it is more or less on the way, and Broome is only a small airport. The worst thing was that, from Darwin, I then had to go to Brisbane and then onto Cairns. Darwin to Brisbane is about 4 hours and then it's another 2 to Cairns, all without any entertainment as the video system was broken on the plane. There was a free bar to compensate though they weren't exactly generous in the number of times they offered us drinks. Ansett are definitely not my favourite airline. Rather annoyingly, they seem to fly Cairns to Darwin direct quite regularly, just not the other way. Perhaps I would have been better off with Qantas, who did have a direct flight.

After Broome, Cairns was a welcome relief. There's far more to do in Cairns and the city doesn't shut down after 10 o'clock. It was quite a relief to be able to pop down a pub for a couple of drinks until a decent hour. There are also a number of night-clubs that offer various deals to backpackers. You can get vouchers from most hostels that entitle you to cheap meals at various places or a free drink with your meal.

The next day I tried to sort out some diving. Unlike Broome, it's not exactly difficult to find someone to take you diving in Cairns. There must be at least fifteen different operators. I chose Rum Runner. They do two different trips, both of which go out to the Coral Sea, where they guarantee at least 30 metres visibility or your money back. I chose to go on the trip that included shark feeding and went out to Holmes Reef, which is 240kms off shore. They only go out on Tuesdays or Fridays and they were full on Tuesday, so I had to wait until Friday. Because it was short notice, I got on at the "standby" rate of $600. They then knocked a further $75 dollars off because I had my own regulator and computer. I booked it through the hostel that I was staying at, Castaways, and got a couple of free nights accommodation too, which was well worth having.

The next couple of days, I didn't do a great deal. Cairns surprisingly doesn't have a beach in town. It's all mud flats down by the esplanade, so I spent most of the time lying around the pool at the hostel and checking out various night spots like the Woolpack. The hostel also had a barbecue one evening a week, which was free.

On the Friday the Rum Runner courtesy bus picked me up and took me down to the shop and then the boat. We sorted out the various formalities including the waiver forms and had our certifications and log books checked. I was buddied with an Italian, who was qualified as a CMAS instructor, but unfortunately didn't speak a great deal of English. That night we went out to the reef and we arrived at around 9am the next morning. It really is quite a long way out.

So we had our first dive brief and I was pleasantly surprised. Everyone had to use a computer. Aladin Sports were provided for those who didn't have their own. We were told not go into deco and to do a 5 minute safety stop. The DM explained that we could just make sure our last five minutes were shallower than 9 metres rather than doing a strict 5 minutes stop at 5m. On the first dive we were given a maximum depth of 50m, yes 50, and a maximum dive time of 50 mins, though it was stressed that we should only go as deep as we were comfortable.

The first dive was at a site called "Amazing" because there were quite a lot of swim throughs between the coral. Our maximum depth for the dive was 43m as we briefly went deep to check for sharks that are often seen there. I personally didn't see any this time, though there were huge, green gorgonians, unicorn fish and a large Napolean wrasse, or Maori wrasse as they're known in Australia. There was also no chance of getting our money back. The visibility was around 50 metres. The water temperature was about 26C.

The second dive was around a coral pinnacle called "Nonki". It lies in about 36m of water, though we didn't go right down to the bottom. Again the viz was great; there were big shoals of horse eyed jacks and more big sea fans. On the third dive of the day, I got to see my first shark of the trip, a whitetip reef shark, as well as a couple of turtle and a large shoal of spotted unicornfish at a cleaning station.

That night we did a night dive back at the first site of the day, Amazing. This time we obviously didn't go nearly as deep and swam around the shallower parts of the site. The torches we were provided with were UK400s, so there was no problem seeing a fair distance with the usual good viz. As well as the expected large amounts of squirrel and soldierfish, several whitetip reef sharks were out hunting.

After four dives that day, and a none too brilliant night's sleep the previous night, I went to bed fairly early. The next morning, the first dive was on a site called Cathedral because the top of the reef looked like the spires of a church. It was a coral wall and we were given a maximum depth of 50m. So I wasn't too pleased when my Italian buddy decided that he'd plummet straight down the wall without so much as looking around occasionally to check I was happy. At 52m I finally attracted his attention and indicated I was going up a bit. He still had his head down at 55m, so what depth he was planning to go to, I don't know. So we completed the rest of the dive at an average depth of about 20m and saw the by now usual unicornfish, white tips and a larger grey reef shark.

After the dive I vigorously complained about my buddy's behaviour. Whilst he didn't understand everything, he certainly got the gist of it, though he didn't seem to understand what I was annoyed about. It was the last time I dived with him. For the next couple of dives he tagged along with another buddy pair, though they made it quite clear that if we went off on his own, they felt no responsibility to follow him and then he had problems with his ears.

The next dive was called the Abyss, and it's a sheer wall that drops down to about 1000m. Visibility was about 40m, so it was a fairly spectacular dive. Huge gorgonians cover the wall and lots of small tropicals were everywhere. Then we dived another coral pinnacle called Viking Pinnacle and saw plenty of fusiliers, basslets and assorted tropicals as well as another grey reef shark.

The third dive was the shark feed. They only feed the sharks quite a small amount of fish so, whilst it may look quite frenzied, it isn't. We all sat or lay on the bottom is a long line. A pulley was stretched from the side of the boat to the bottom in front of us. A couple of fish heads were attached to a metal triangle and this was pulled down from the boat into the water.

As well as clouds of other fish, there were something like 8-10 white tips, a couple of grey reef sharks and a silvertip. The silvertips are really quite big, as was the potato cod that also turned up. It was a great dive, though it was a bit chilly sitting on the bottom for 30 mins.

That night we had the choice of doing a night dive there and only having time for one dive on the Great Barrier Reef the next morning, or heading back straight away and having 2 dives the following morning. We all decided we didn't really feel like another dive, so headed straight back.

I never seemed to sleep very well when the boat was actually moving. As Holmes Reef is so far out, the swell can be quite large on the journey, though it's fairly calm at the reef itself. So the next morning we did a dive on Briggs Reef just outside Cairns. It was the unhealthiest reef I have ever seen. A plague of Crown O Thorns starfish has eaten just about all the polyps in the hard coral. It was still a reasonable dive because there were a lot of soft coral, sponges and algae which attracted lots of fish like parrotfish, angelfish and fusiliers. The viz was quite good for the GBR at 18m and the maximum depth was about 23m if you went right down to the sand at the bottom.

Rum Runner are trying to change the reef they're allowed to dive, so they may stop going to Briggs in the future. It was still a reasonable dive, though I didn't bother to squeeze another one in there. I didn't really want to cut my surface interval so short and breakfast seemed much more appealing. I think you'd be pretty upset if you'd booked something like an OW course and all you got to see of the GBR was Briggs Reef, so it's worth checking. At the time Cairns Dive Centre had their "Floating Hotel" at Briggs Reef, and I'm sure other companies used the area.

I'd thoroughly recommend Rum Runner. They treated you like certified, diving adults rather than supervising everything you did. The diving on Holmes Reef is some of the best I've ever seen. The visibility was definitely the best I've ever seen. The dive briefs were very good. They had a map for every site and we were told all the sorts of things that we could expect to see in different places. The food was as good, if not better than you can expect on a boat and the people were friendly. They even rinsed your kit for you on the last day.

It was well worth the money and the souvenir T-shirts were good value too.

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