Cairns or Cod Hole?... Is February-March alright?

1) According to your personal experience… is Cod Hole better than Cairns? I am under the impression that Cairns has more diversity… and of course more cods at Cod Hole.

2) According to the documentation there is a lot rain and storms in February and March in Queensland… does it alter the experience in the Coral Barrier?

If you have suggestions about the Coral Barrier: destination, when to go, diving tour operator … let me know.

1) According to your personal experience… is Cod Hole better than Cairns? I am under the impression that Cairns has more diversity… and of course more cods at Cod Hole.

 

 

2) According to the documentation there is a lot rain and storms in February and March in Queensland… does it alter the experience in the Coral Barrier?

 

 

If you have suggestions about the Coral Barrier: destination, when to go, diving tour operator … let me know.

Cairns is not a dive site, it's a Nth Queensland city where you catch day boats out to the nearby reef or live-aboards for longer trips. Cairns does not have beaches , just mudflats.

Cod Hole is an all night trip on a boat from Cairns. It's part of the northern stretches of the GBR and way better than any of the tourist hammered reefs close to Cairns.

A standard live-aboard trip goes from Cairns up to Cod Hole, then out to Osprey Reef...a further night's travel out into the Coral Sea, then back and down to one or two of the Ribbon Reefs on the way back to Cairns.

I have been on the TAKA which was reasonable cost with about 30 divers all up. Different critters appear at different times of the year so it depends if you want Minke Whales, Manta Rays, nice weather or whatever. Check out the TAKA website for trip details. http://www.takadive.com.au/

I have taken the TAKA live-a-board and was quite put off when we were told upon entering the water that if we were not back in 50 minutes we would not be allowed to dive the rest of the trip.

At least, they took you back : )

At least, they took you back : )

Yea, they did. But I will not take another cruise with them

They have moorings at the dive sites, so you dive directly from the TAKA which means you have to swim to the dive site and back. This back and forth takes some time so it further limits your time to explore the dive site. I found this type of diving not relaxing since I could not take time to explore and take photos.

As Panda said, Cod Hole and the northern ribbon reefs have some great diving, far better than what you get on the day trips out of Cairns. It's worth doing the Osprey Reef trip too, you'll still do the CH, plus get right out to Osprey, a long way off land, often greater than 40m vis, and loads of sharks (I even saw a hammerhead out there on my last trip).

A lot of my photos on my flickr site are taken from these trips (a lot are also from day trips out of Cairns too).

PM me if you want any specific info.

Ryan.

Thanx Aussie. I am reading a lot on the different spots.

My question is:

How is the diving in reefs near Whitesundays?

Haven't dived the Far Northern Region of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) for many years but the Cod Hole / Ribbon Reefs and Osprey Reef are fantastic.

Here is a website that might help you - www.divingcairns.com.au - it has info about day trips out of Cairns, 2&3 nighters and longer.

Cairns is basically a largish (by Australian standards) city and is used as a base for trips to the GBR as it is closer to the Reef than Townsville, The Whitsundays, Mackay, Gladstone or Bundaberg which are the other major centres along the lenght of the Reef.

Cairns and The Whitsundays are also the major tourist centres as well so there are lots of boats and therefore day trippers etc so if you don't like crowds then look at another region.

Also beaware that it is still in our cyclone season (like a hurricain but bigger) in northern Australia so there is always a chance that one might blow up whilst you are out there or before you go - in which case the trips can / will be cancelled. The up side is that there is ussually less tourists

Hope this helps.

Karl

Thanx Karl, usually in mid February, are they able to see a hurricaine coming 3 days in advance?

Thanx Karl, usually in mid February, are they able to see a hurricaine coming 3 days in advance?

Cyclones, but generally, yes, although it is not always possible to determine the accurate path or the impact it will have. Much like the difficulty in forecasting hurricanes of North America.

I've been to The Cod Hole around 10 times and while it was good, in my opinion it is over rated. It's on Ribbon Reef #10 and there are better sites close by. Lighthouse Bommie is a brilliant site, for example.

As others have suggested, look for a liveaboard that starts from Cairns (or Port Douglas) that goes to the Ribbon Reefs and Osprey Reef. Osprey is awesome and one of my favourite areas to dive.