We arrived in Cairns about noon and were able to check into the Cairns Hilton immediately. On the spur of the moment, we decided to upgrade to an oceanview “Spa Suite” for an additional A$70 a night. This included our own “SpaMaster” who could prepare specialty baths for some hefty prices. We had a beautiful view of the harbor where all the dive boats leave from and had great sunsets as well.
Our first day we spent kicking around the town and looking at the myriad of touristy shops everywhere. What amazed us was the sheer quantity of Asian tourists here. While all of Australia has a high Asian population, Cairns in particular seemed to really cater to their tourist crowd, including whole souvenir shops where every single sign and price was in Japanese and prices in yen etc. Our main goal on this day was to find a kick ass dive operator to go diving the next day. We wanted to try to get to the best reef sites as well as squeeze 3 dives in since we only had one day to dive. After going to a bunch of different dive shops / tour operators, there seemed to be a few that everyone recommended. We decided to go with the Silversonic which actually left out of Port Douglas which is about an hour north of Cairns. Everyone recommended that we leave from there instead since it would allow you to get to the “outer reef” more so that the boats leaving from Cairns. So we set off on a really nice boat for the Agincourt Ribbon reef.
Our first dive was a 20 meter deep reef right on the edge of the continental shelf where 100 meters away from the dive site, the edge of the ocean just dropped off. This gave great visibility and vibrant coral and fish life. Our second dive was at a spot they called Barracuda Tower that was a natural coral formation that lived up to its name. This one was also about 20 meters deep. Our last dive was a “drift dive” where they drop us off the boat while it is still moving and then we drift in the current back to the boat which is a fun way to dive.
While we were diving, we found Nemo! (clown fish)
Our guides also showed us a bunch of strange things that were living on the ocean floor. This one felt like a carpet.
OMG a Shark! This one was a 6 foot grey whaler shark and we actually got closer than this pic shows.
Step 1: Find a giant clam.
Step 2: Convince wife to stick hand in said clam:
Step 3: Watch as clam closes and hilarity ensues.
Some other folks saw a stingray too but we missed it. We also saw a few barracuda, but didn’t manage to get a good pic of them. All in all we had a great day and some great diving that lived up to our expectations.
That night we went to a local bar and met a nice guy who owned a concrete company and was actually going to Vegas in January! The next day we spent shopping for tourist stuff and Christmas gifts. All the stores pretty much have the same stuff so if you just shop around a bit, you can normally find things for a lot cheaper. We also checked out the “Esplanade Pool” which is a huge public inifinity pool that was very impressive. I wouldn’t be opposed to staying at a cheap hotel close to this if I ever go back since you can just hang out at this awesome pool.
We headed to the airport for our 4 O` Clock flight which was of course delayed (like every Quantas flight on our trip), and arrived in Sydney about 9:00 PM.