A liveaboard is a perfect way to truly enjoy the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. It’s almost without a doubt that every diver has the Great Barrier Reef on their bucket list. One of the locations where liveaboards leave out of is Cairns, Australia. So here is what to expect while diving on the Great Barrier Reef and what to do in Cairns before or after your liveaboard!

Quick Trip Overview

• Location: Great Barrier Reef, Australia
• Closet City: Cairns, Australia
• Closest Airport: Cairns Airport
• Time of Year: August to January (Queensland warm waters are good all year round though!) Coral Spawning: Late October to early November
• Time: 5 Days, 3 days on Liveaboard, 2 days in Cairns (front end and back end of the trip)
• Estimated Cost: $2,000 (Plane ticket from within Australia, Liveaboard (3 days – $1000), Hotel)

Visiting the Great Barrier Reef

So where is it? The Great Barrier Reef extends from Cape York in the north all the way to Bundaberg in the south. The most popular destination to visit the Great Barrier Reef is from Cairns. Which is easy to fly in and out of from Airports within Australia.

Cairns itself is in a swamp area, and not a beach getaway (like I had thought!). In order to get to the Great Barrier Reef, you will need to book a trip on a liveaboard to really enjoy your time on it. Therefore, minimize your time in Cairns, and maximize it on the GBR!

There are shops in Cairns that organize the trips, and will pick you up from your lodging and take you to a boat where you will spend the next couple of days out on the Great Barrier Reef.

Dive Information for Great Barrier Reef

• Wet Suit: 3mm
• Water Temperature: Average 30 surface, 28 bottom
• Current: Very manageable except around some cliff edges
• Average Depths: Majority deeper dives at around 15m
• Max Depths: 30m

What you may see at Great Barrier Reef

You will see a large variety of ocean life while at the Great Barrier Reef. As one of the largest ecosystems in the world – it goes without saying almost.

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Some of the ocean life to try and spot are: Large Moray Eeels, False Anenome Fish (Clown Fish), Turtles, White Tip Reef Sharks. Those are some of the bigger ocean life that you will spot on your dives, however there will be so many more out there to learn about!

Liveaboard to the Great Barrier Reef

There are day trips out from Cairns to visit the Great Barrier Reef but my recommendation is to do a liveaboard. A liveaboard is exactly as it sounds, you live on a boat for a set number of days. I did a three-day trip, which included 11 dives across the Great Barrier Reef. This included: deep dives, night dives, and a variety other than just reef dives. It was the best bang for your buck, here is why liveaboards are the best way to dive a destination:

• Liveaboards save you the time of commuting daily to dive locations
• Also, food and lodging are included with your dive cost – typically saving money
• Furthermore, on average you will get more dives than if you organized from shore
• Additionally, some companies will do combo courses with their liveaboards. Such as:
  • Get trained in open water before going on the liveaboard
  • Conduct advance open water speciality dive training while on board
  • Learn how to use Nitrox
• Most noteworthy: Spend time with, and meet new divers of a variety of abilities and experiences

Types of Liveaboards for the Great Barrier Reef

Pro Dive out of Cairns is one of the most popular liveaboard options. This meets those looking at completing a quick “Bucket List: Dive the Great Barrier Reef” option. You will only be on the boat for three days, and two nights and complete 11 dives in that time span.

That can be exhausting, but you will see some of the popular locations across the Great Barrier Reef and be able to say you did it. The Pro Dive boats are the budget ones, you will be in a room with twin bed bunks, and with shared bathrooms with the rest of the boat occupants.

There is a variety of type of liveaboards from budget ones where you stay in a cabin with other people in bunk beds (this is what I did for GBR at $700) or more luxury ones with individual cabins. It really depends on what you are willing to spend!

There are also longer options for liveaboards out of Cairns which will be a 7 day trip. If you are confident in your abilitiy to stay on a boat for extended period of times then this is the highly recommend option.

The company Ocean Quest offers more extended dive trips that last upwards of seven days – which means upwards of 27 dives if you do all the dives. On these ones you can go to more exclusive areas of the reef and really take in the Great Barrier Reef. Additionally, this company has private rooms with individual bathrooms. Less hostel, more hotel like!

Check out all the Cairns liveaboard options here:

• Liveaboard Diving
• The company I used to dive with in Cairns: Pro Dive Cairns

Download Dive Logs!

Before you head out to the Great Barrier Reef, make sure that you have your dive logs. Dive logs are required by some dive companies to check that you have dove recently (typically in the last year), and some dive companies require a certain number of dives before advancing in training. So don’t be without it!

These dive logs have the basics of what you need to log after a dive and focus on what made you comfortable (or uncomfortable) in the water, and what you saw while diving!