Our Failed Diving Experience At The Great Barrier Reef...And How You Can Do It Better
K, let’s talk about The Great Barrier Reef. It’s the world’s largest coral system, spanning 133,000 square miles off the coast of Queensland. It’s a World Heritage site known for supporting a wide variety of sea life. And it’s rapidly dying due to threats from climate change, pollution, and over-fishing.
With all that in mind, it’s easy to see why the Great Barrier Reef is a popular destination for divers who want to experience the biodiversity of the area before it’s gone.
When we were in Australia, an intro dive in the Great Barrier Reef was at the top of our to-do list, but unfortunately our experience ended up being a total #fail. That’s NOT to say that we wouldn’t recommend going, or that you won’t have a good time though.
Here, we wanted to break down the reasons why our personal experience on the reef wasn’t not at all “the tits” so you can avoid making the same mistakes...and can hopefully have a day out on the reef that’s exactly what you imagined!
1. Intro Dive Research & Expectations
We’re beginner divers. Ray had been diving just once in The Galapagos Islands, and Sam had never been. Our attitude was, “We’re in Australia, we HAVE to dive in the Great Barrier Reef!” Because it was such a given, we didn’t take time to do the level of research we usually would.
What neither of us realized was that the reef is over an hour boat ride out from Cairns, and you’re learning to dive while out in the open water. For her first diving experience, Sam totally pictured a bay where you can walk out into the water from the beach or from a sandbar, training slowly and getting used to your diving equipment. It turned out this was not AT ALL the case. After suiting up and jumping off the back of the boat, the instructor spent about five minutes giving us the basics before we had to swim to the other side of the boat in our heavy equipment and complete the underwater portion of the training.
Sam was completely freaking out after the difficult swim in rough waters. Not to mention, her eye mask wasn’t tight enough at first so the strong current was completely blowing it off her face. In subconscious full panic attack mode, she kept asking the instructor to go back up above water to “adjust the mask” aka having a pure fight or flight moment. When it was time for the whole “practice throwing your breathing regulator into the open ocean and recovering it” part of the training...Sam gave a big HELL NAH and peaced the f out. It was such a bummer to pay for an intro dive, come all the way out there, and end up pretty much traumatized and not doing the thing you came for.
Ray — despite then having to worry about why Sam didn’t come back underwater — did complete the dive so kudos to him!
If we had done our research and understood more about what the intro dive entailed, we may have reconsidered or at least been in the right mental state to take it on. Plenty of other beginners did it as well so it’s very possible Sam is just a total wuss. Better luck next time…
If you’re an experienced diver, we’re sure The Great Barrier Reef is on your bucket list and the diving conditions are nothing you haven’t encountered before. After all, once you’re under the water the rough seas are no longer a factor. If you’re a beginner like us, hopefully this helps you know what to expect a bit better than we did.
2. Sea Conditions
It also didn’t help that the seas were extremely choppy that day. There were a couple snorkeling sessions before the dives went down, and the crew even warned us this was one of the roughest days out on the water they had experienced, and strongly advised everyone to wear a life vest or use a flotation device while snorkeling.
We felt fine almost all the way out to our diving destination...and that’s when people started coming down from the boat’s upper deck because they were getting sea sick. Seeing other people get all pale green and spew their breakfast into the ocean is never great for your psyche...and Ray then started to feel nauseous too. So much so that he was actually throwing up RIGHT before his dive. You may be wondering…isn’t diving on an upset stomach when you’re at risk of having to vomit while deep under the ocean extremely dangerous and unadvisable? 😬To which we’d answer, yes. Yes it is. As mentioned, the rough waters were part of the reason Sam had so much trouble with the intro dive too, and she ended up being the one feeling nauseous on the ride back to Cairns while Ray was miraculously passed the f out, head violently swaying with the motion of the boat the whole way back.
We know there’s not much you can do to control the weather / water conditions once you’ve already booked a dive in advance, but if you do have extra time you can consider rescheduling for a better day. We’d definitely recommend bringing dramamine or other combatants to sea sickness no matter what.
3. Tour Company
We did our tour with Cairns Dive Centre, which has good reviews and had one of the best prices we found. We wouldn’t say we don’t recommend them because plenty of other people have had great experiences…but there were definitely some things that felt off to us on our specific tour.
We first noticed a lack of organization when there weren’t enough wetsuits in the right sizes. Everyone on the lower deck grabbed wetsuits first, and since we were sitting on the upper deck at first, the only ones left for us were way too big. Thx, bros, for not letting everyone know to grab one as they boarded. Later on, our wariness continued when the crew served lunch while Ray’s group was still out on their intro dive. By the time they got back, everything was super picked over and there wasn’t enough left. We also thought the tour company could have provided dramamine or ginger tablets on such a rough day out at sea when people were experiencing sea sickness. If not out of care for their patrons, it’s in their best interest to not have to mop puke off the deck, right?
Those are all little things that added up in our minds, but our biggest issue was the fact that the crew didn’t provide ANY backstory about the reef or the places we stopped to snorkel and dive. We’re not asking for a full speech here, but our crew literally dropped us off at snorkel destinations where there was one one section of coral and sea life nearby, and we just had to swim around until we found it. We thought they could have done a much better job pointing out where the coral cluster was in relation to the boat to save everyone time and energy. We also would have loved a little bit of info on the sea life we might expect to see and the reef in general. Since the reef is in a state of peril, it’d be great to give tourists a brief education on reef health and what we can do to help.
As mentioned, the intro dive training was super brief and not what we expected either, but this could very well be the case with all intro dives out in open ocean.
4. Sea Life
This one is a bummer to have to talk about, and maybe just another situation where we weren’t informed enough going into it. Because of the Great Barrier Reef’s reputation, we expected to see a huge quantity and array of sea life, but sadly that wasn’t the case. The coral clusters we stopped at were definitely cool, but we’ve both experienced much better visibility and diversity of sea life when snorkeling in other places like The Whitsunday Islands, Thailand, Hawaii, The Galapagos, and more.
Ray reported back that the coolest thing he saw on the intro dive was some giant clams, which we saw plenty of in other places too and honestly aren’t the most exciting creatures to witness in the wild. With little to no background given by the crew, we’re not sure if the sea life we saw was on par with what to expect or not. Given the chance to do it again, we’d research more and even talk to some of the dive companies beforehand about the best places to snorkel and dive in the reef off of Cairns and whether or not each company stops at those locations. There’s definitely a ton we don’t know, so if you’ve had a better experience snorkeling and diving in the area please sound off in the comments!
Overall, we felt a little dejected after our day out in the reef because it just wasn’t what we pictured. It’s never advisable to visit somewhere based on reputation alone without doing your due diligence, so we mostly place the fault on our own shoulders here. Hopefully these insights can help you avoid the same mistake and have an amazing time at the reef if you choose to go!
We’d love to hear about your experiences at the Great Barrier Reef, whether they were similar or, hopefully, much better! Leave us a comment below or on our latest Instagram post.
Happy travels!
