Our personal opinion and recommendation

This is the most prominent and most visited area of the entire Barrier Reef. The reefs in this section are closest to the coast and easily visited by day trips and short overnight trips out of Cairns - very handy if you do not have much time for diving.

This section is home to some very good coral reefs for scuba diving and snorkelling. Diving is easy and perfect for beginners.

These reefs are home to abundant fish life and healthy coral. Due to a vigorous code of practice by all operators, those heavily visited reefs are in very good condition. This is very good tropical diving, especially if you have not dived tropical reefs before. However, if you want to see the best of tropical diving in Australia, you need to travel a little further to areas like the Ribbon Reefs or in the Coral Sea. Experienced tropical divers will appreciate the pristine dive sites that are the reward of the extra time and distances travelled.

Live Aboards	Day Dive Boats
Scubapro Ocean Quest Reef Encounter	Tusa Poseidon Silversonic

  Location

The reefs are located around 50 - 65 km (30 to 40 miles) off the coast from Cairns or Port Douglas (90-120 minutes by boat). Out of Cairns you can visit reefs like Norman, Saxon, Hastings, Flynn and Milln Reef. The most popular reefs out of Port Douglas are Tongue and Opal and Agincourt Reef.

In only 45 minutes you can drive from Cairns to Port Douglas by car or bus. The coastal road is a scenic treat that you should not miss! Transfers between the towns can easily be organised.

Logistics For Dive Excursions

It is easy to get to these inner reef sites. You have the choice of day trips to the reef and over-night live aboard trips. The dive school live aboards visit the reefs out of Cairns. With them you can take 1 to 5 night excursions. They have mostly open water students and snorkellers on board, but they do cater for certified divers as well.

If you prefer to take a day trip, take one of the fast vessels that travel at 20-24 knots to the reef and you will arrive at the reef within 90 minutes. Day boats out of Port Douglas allow up to 3 dives per day. You receive a concise dive briefing and a dive master to guide you on the dives. With day trips out of Cairns, up to 3 dives per day are offered. A good dive site and safety briefing is given and a buddy allocated, if you do not already have one.

What To See

Features of these reefs are pinnacles, lagoons, drop-offs, caves & gutters and very pretty coral gardens. The reefs display a huge variety of tropical marine life with big schools of colourful reef fish such as parrotfish, sweetlips and others. You may see also blue spotted stingrays in the sand, eels, octopus, molluscs, flatworms and sea stars.

Pelagics are rather rare. You might come across small whitetip sharks and with a bit of luck barracudas or grey reef sharks. The typical features for the GBR are the beautiful giant clams. There are many clams, all adorned with different colours.

Types Of Diving

Diving here is pretty easy, ideal for novice divers. Hardly any currents, and the best diving is to be found in the shallows, where most of the activitiy is happening. Maximum depth is between 15 and 30 meters (45-100 feet), average depth about 18 metres. The reef tops come up to about 2 to 4 meters below the surface - ideal for snorkellers as well. Average visibility is about 10 to 20 meters (30-60 feet), on a very good day even 30 meters (100 feet).

Dive Sites Out Of Cairns

• Milln Reef: "Whale Bommie" is located 100 metres out from the main reef and starts in 25m of water. Small caves and large gorgonian fans along with hard and soft corals and many, many tropical fish can be found here. "The Swimming Pool" is a shallow dive, 10-12 m offering a large selection of fish and corals. This is a very nice site for night dives too.

• Flynn Reef: "The Coral Gardens" is a unique dive site and as its name implies, divers are rewarded with a "garden" of coral incorporating a wall dive, dropping off to 27 metres. Along the wall you might see barracuda, mackerel, stingrays, turtles and sharks. One of the best dives in that price range out of Cairns!

• Gordon's Reef: This reef has excellent corals and some turtles. It has its share of swim throughs. It is almost like being in a maze. There is one spot with beautiful anemones with clown fish, called "Clownfish city".

• Saxon Reef: Saxon Reef is quite large with over 20 moorings, meaning 20 different dive sites. For example, you can do a wall dive or shallow dive, with the wall ending in 8 metres of water. In the sandy area, you come across a number of small coral heads, which have all sorts of interesting creatures living on them - nudibranchs, the odd lionfish and damselfish.

• Norman Reef: Fantastic Swim throughs and gullies. Beautiful hard coral gardens with many giant clams in all sizes and colours. During your dive you might come across a huge maori wrasse or a few friendly batfish.

• Michaelmas Reef: A beautiful sandy cay (Michaelmas Cay) with the reef close to it. There are a couple of dive sites at Michaelmas Reef. You dive amongst coral bommies where you find sea stars, batfish, lionfish, turtles and more.

Live Aboard Dive Operators

• Scubapro
• Ocean Quest
• Reef Encounter

Day Dive Boat Operators

• Tusa, Cairns
• Poseidon, Port Douglas
• Silversonic, Port Douglas

Accommodation And Tours

Accommodation and tour options, and general destination information, are also available for the adjacent Cairns-Port Douglas and Daintree-Cape York mainland regions.