Joe and I joined the rather lengthy check-in line at the Sydney domestic airport and spied the rest of our group (Joe’s parents, brother Frankie, and Frankie’s girlfriend Chelsea), who had just arrived from the good ol’ US of A. Our newly formed party of six took the three hour flight to Cairns and then a ten minute taxi ride to the DoubleTree. This was our home base for three of the five nights in Cairns and the other two were on a liveaboard in the Great Barrier Reef, which I’ll get to soon.
While in Cairns...
Cairns certainly doesn’t have as much to do on land as Sydney, and we had come smack in the middle of the rainy season. But somehow we lucked out and had beautiful sunny days for the entirety of our trip. On land we dined at Dundee’s, Salt House and Rattle N Hum. Fish was the specialty, and since I’m not a huge fish fan, I can’t speak as much to the food. Though at Salt House I did hesitantly try a bit of kangaroo, and I honestly couldn’t distinguish it from steak. To cool off from the “feels like 101 degrees” weather, we went to the local lagoon, a.k.a. pool. But I’ve yet to mention the biggest land adventure near Cairns, the rainforest. Joe and I ended up spending a day in the rainforest, which I’ll cover in a separate post here.
The Ocean Quest Liveaboard...
But let’s get to the good stuff, the Ocean Quest Liveaboard. We packed our stuff and met someone from Diver’s Den in the DoubleTree lobby at 7:30am who took us to the office. After checking in with our PADI cards (I had just gotten Open Water Certified in Pittsburgh in the 47 degree quarry), we were driven to the dock. We boarded Sea Quest, a day boat that hosted day trippers and transported liveaboarders to their new vessels in the afternoon. But first we had two morning dives. So, we got fitted for our stinger suits, geared up, and took a giant stride into the balmy 82 degree water.
After lunch we were transported to the Ocean Quest, a 24 room boat with one purpose - diving! A full day on the boat had five total dives, including a night dive. So over the course of our three days Joe and I ended up doing all 12 dives.
Oh, and did I mention I now have my Advanced Open Water certification? Yes, well I do. On the boat all open water divers had the option of doing this course, which constituted a total of five dives where our wonderful instructor, Alice, taught us some navigation and identified more marine life than I would’ve known to look for. While not initially what I wanted to do, the Advanced OW course was great and I’m glad Joe “convinced” me to essentially have a private tour of the Great Barrier Reef. Thanks, Alice! Here she is feeding a turtle...
Our dives introduced us to a ton of new animals, like the entire cast of Finding Nemo! We swam with sharks, stingrays, turtles and a trigger fish that tried to attack me during my first dive. And this awesome jelly.
While the boat may not have been exceedingly clean and food not amazing, it fit the bill. The crew was extremely nice and the dives were amazing. It catered to beginner divers with no certification to certified divers with over 700 dives under their belt. Overall, I’m thrilled we did the liveaboard and was completely exhausted after so many dives. Our third day we were transported back to Cairns via a two hour journey on Sea Quest. In the shop Mrs. P was extremely nice and bought us all Diver’s Den shirts to commemorate the experience, and then we were back to the DoubleTree.
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