Spirit of Freedom (SOF) – By Paul Dupreez.
Last year Emma/Adam posted a review of their 4 day trip on the SOF. This is effectively the last 4 days of the 7 day SOF expedition. In March I did the 3 day trip (the first 3 days of the 7 day expedition), which starts at noon each Monday. Hence these two reviews taken together round-out the full 7 day itinerary.
This was one of those trips that left you grumpy on the flight back home. Grumpy because you were going home!! A trip on the SOF is so good you could stay on the boat for 6 months and not get board. The service and accommodation is excellent, the staff are friendly to a fault. The food brilliant and plentiful. And the diving??? .. very impressive. The whole experience was unrestrictive and accommodating.
For myself half the fun of any dive is the journey to get there. More often than not most journey’s are filled with drama. My trip on the SOF began with a Jetstar flight from Newcastle to Cairns via Brisbane. Given the timing of flights, I discovered that baggage cannot always be booked through to Cairns from Newcastle. This is partly because Jetstar flights baggage check-in only opens 2 hours before departure. Arrive outside this window and you’ll have to recheck your baggage and go through security again (annoying).
My arrival in Cairns on the Saturday afternoon was met with heavy rain. This time of year is the wet season. However, most of it is stop-start rain with intermittent periods of sunshine. The humidity was heavy but not as bad as I expected. Of particular note were the swimming nets on the local beach’s. Why? It is also stinger season (ie. The infamous box jellyfish infests these waters). You really are risking life and limb entering the water on the coast(plus the crocs are about). Fortunately, this problem only exists on the coast and not at the outer barrier reef (the destination of SOF trips). (FYI- Weather out on the reef was generally good. Not much rain, but a bit of chop on the water at times.)
After a short taxi ride from the airport, I checked-in to the Cairns Harbour Lights hotel. This is a really nice 4 start hotel located on Trinity inlet in downtown Cairns. It’s about a 5 minute walk to the dock where you board SOF. I paid about $100 per night as it was out of season (excellent value). In peak season the price triples. I didn’t waste any money buying meals from the hotel restaurant as I discovered that downtown Cairns has many dining options to suite all budgets. My earlier arrival into Cairns allowed me to check out the many dive shops in the area. Given the area’s proximity to the barrier reef, this isn’t surprising. I soon discovered that this really is the place to buy camera housings. Every dive shop seems well stocked with these. I splurged and bought a rig and light housing for my GoPro. I also discovered that if you buy anything from TUSA dive (owned by SOF) you get an automatic discount (10%?) on any purchase as a guest of SOF.
Monday finally arrived. Right on schedule SOF departed from Cairns headed for our first dive of the 3 day trip. I’d brought all of my own gear (except a wetsuit which was cheap to hire) which had to be limited to 20kg. That was a challenge. After a really good briefing we did a couple of check-out dives at a site called Norman reef. Whilst a small area, there was lots to see, Titan Trigger fish, Red Bass and big banner fish to name a few. The purpose of these two dive was for the SOF crew to assess everyone’s abilities before assigning buddies for the rest of the trip. Compared to my respected peers at Let’s Go Adventures, I’m very much the baby of the group in terms of experience. As such I was shocked to discover that among the guests on SOF I was almost the most experienced. At rough guess 70% of the guest were from overseas. It was a revelation talking to them about their dive experience. Most of these people only get to dive once or twice each year on dive holidays like this. A few hadn’t dived for two years. Some even did their dive training in flooded quarries (amazing). One lass did her open water in 11 degrees waters of the North Sea. They were all bemused and jealous to learn that I dive almost every week just up the road from my home. All of us who dive with Let’s Go Adventures, from staff to club members to guests, are the luckiest people in the world to have these wonderful dive sites (the envy of others) that we can dive daily, right outside our front door. Were living the dream!!
After these checkout dives, we enjoyed a hearty dinner before setting sail for 160 nautical mile overnight transit to Ribbon Reefs 9 & 10. It was a very rocky night on the boat as there were frequent squalls. I’ve never been sea sick, however I must confess that at one point I had to fight to keep the “butter chicken” down, such were the conditions. Thankfully, a 2am trot around the boat “looking out into the imaginary horizon hiding in the darkness” helped avert that near disaster.
The ribbon reefs were spectacular. Pixie Pinnacle, Challenger Bay, Dynamite Pass and the Cod Hole. Plentiful fish life and massive corals. I particularly like the schools of barracuda. Awesome fish. However, for size, one particular Queensland Grouper took the cake!! In reality it probably could have taken a dozen cakes at once. Huge!!Fish. The visibility at the Cod Hole was awesome, as were the Potato Cod. You can see why it has a “world famous” reputation.There was drama at the Cod Feed when a fellow diver was bitten. All good though as no fingers missing.
For me the highlight dives were the night dive at challenger Bay and the drift at Dynamite Pass. At the night dive the ocean was boiling with Giant Trevally, Red Bass and sharks. All in a feeding frenzy of unbelievable magnitude. If you didn’t see it you wouldn’t believe it. Then imagine jumping into the middle of this frenzy at night to start the dive!! Totally surreal. The action continues as you shine your torch under nooks and crannies or the various corals. Soon you discover that the reef sharks like following your torchlight. How to get rid of them? turn your torch off.
What a dive. Then, the drift dive. Imagine jumping “navy seal style” into a couple of tenders. Heading a fair distance from SOF and then rolling off the side of the tender, descending immediately and then running with the current. Who needs a DPV. My only wish? I wish I could have done a repeat dive at this site.
Thursday, morning was home time. We all went ashore on Lizard Island before embarking on a short one hour trek along parts of the island. Before long two planes were seen coming into land at the island. On board were new guests about to start their 4 day SOF trip. For us it was our ride home. It was a sombre one hour low level flight back to Cairns. All the divers on board had long faces and fat lips. We didn’t want to leave. That my friends is the SOF effect.