Holmes Reef Dive Trip

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I got to the Cairns wharf at about 2 pm, feeling fairly excited about the trip. The only downside was the constant drizzle that had been hanging around for the last couple of days. Sitting in the Coral Sea Diving office, I had a look at the Bureau of Meteorology web site. Not good news. Winds from the SE, freshening to 25 - 30 kts overnight. Not ideal boating weather. By 3.30pm, a strong wind warning had been issued.

We were supposed to be under way by 4pm but at 3.50, a couple of American fellows decided they had to get some supplies. So, it was about 5pm when we finally left the wharf and headed out of Cairns Harbour.

This was to be our last taste of calm water for the rest of the trip. By about 9pm, the wind was howling and the seas had risen to about 2.5 - 3 metres. Things were getting a bit wild. As you can see in the picture further down the page, there is very little room on the bunk. After getting tossed around for a while, I decided to move to a bunk at the very front of the boat. Bad move. I renamed that little room "The Anti Gravity Tank". I still have the bruises on my sides and arms from being violently flung around and across the cabin before finally being thrown right from my bunk onto the floor.

That was it!!! Outside to the cockpit, where the wind had increased and the waves were now closer to 4 metres and breaking across the bow. I slept on a bench in the cockpit where everyone stepped over me, or on me, all night, on their way to the rail to get rid of their dinner. I think the skipper and I were the only 2 people out of 14 on the boat who weren't sick.

The trip usually takes 15 hours. This time, it took 21 and everyone was very glad when we made it into the calm water behind the reef.

The wind blew at a steady 20 knots for the whole time out there. That's the reason for the blurriness of the water in the photos.

As soon as lunch was over, everyone was in the water for a dive at this place called The Caves.

On Saturday afternoon, we dived a beautiful spot called Amazing and then we had a night dive in the same spot. Absolutely beautiful.......

On Sunday morning, we dived The Abyss. It's in the far distance in this photo, on the horizon.

The top of the reef is at water level, it slopes gently down to about 15 metres and then just drops away on a sheer cliff wall to 1000 metres deep. Spooky when you look down the wall and it just disappears into the depths. We saw turtles, stingrays, reef sharks and some of the most beautiful fan coral you could imagine. It was quite eery floating in 1000 metres of water waiting for the boat to come and pick you up at the end of the dive.

After lunch, we moved to another spot not far away where we would feed the sharks. The one in the photo here is a silver tip reef shark and he was about 3 or 4 metres long. They were used to the dive boats being there so they weren't any trouble. You just have to be careful not to leave fingers extended when you're in the water, in case they mistake them for a tasty morsel :-)

Unfortunately, there was a bit of a breakdown in communication between the crew on the boat and the people in the water so we ended up not being able to feed the sharks. But there were plenty of sharks there and they were very curious and came close enough time and time again so you could run your hands along their sides.

After a reasonably early dinner, we had a dusk/night dive and then put all the gear away ready for the trip home. The wind was still blowing at about 20 knots but this time we'd have the wind behind us so we hoisted the sail. The seas were still about 2.5 metres which still made for a rough trip but the wind died right off around 4 am. We ended up with a pod of about 12 dolphins playing around the front of the boat not long after dawn.

While the weather wasn't great, it was one of the best weekends I've had. No phones, no emails. I had withdrawal symptoms for a while but they passed.

I'm not in the habit of photographing public toilets but these ones on the highway at Cardwell caught my eye.

If anyone would like to go, please let me know. Andy, who owns Coral Sea Diving, agreed to give any Hotkey Ultrafast customers and staff a 10% discount on a trip. Actually, I think he said that at about 1am on the Friday morning, still in Cairns, over quite a few Tequilas but I know he meant it :-)

He's very keen for me to put a Hotkey Ultrafast trip together for later in the year so if anyone would like to be a part of that, let me know. I'm sure we'd be able to negotiate some good deals for accomodation and airfares as a group booking.