As I sit on the top deck of Spirit of Freedom, sipping my icy cold corona with lime and watching the completely flat sea reflecting the last afternoon sun, I can not help but start to reflect on our diving over the last few days. Adam just asked me “do we have to go home?” As I watch the crew prepare our BBQ dinner I wonder why I had not done this trip earlier. The lure of overseas exotic places is perhaps not unusual, but after having only experienced our Great Barrier Reef on only a short trip out of Cairns years ago, I will admit I felt there was more to offer for cheaper overseas. My gosh I was WRONG….

Adam and I have collectively dived Vanuatu, Fiji, Komodo, Manado, Bali, Red Sea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, the NSW coast, Truk and even Palau…. We expecting nice diving but what we found blew us away. Simply put, if you have not yet dived the Barrier Reef, then you must join the Spirit of Freedom for their trip to the Ospey Reef which is where we have had some of our best dives to date.

We started our journey in Cairns which is often for us the start of a hideous overnight flight on the way to Truk or Palau. Instead we had a leisurely dinner in Cairns, had a great night sleep and joined our reef flight up the coast to meet the Spirit of Freedom at Lizard Island the following morning. Travel that was just too easy.

Our cruise director Simon, assisted by his great humoured and enthusiastic crew briefed us on the boat procedures and gave an insight of what was to come. Over the next few days as we put into practice all his tips and suggestions it was apparent at how well organised and structured our trip was.

In my travels I have often had people comment that service in Australia is not as good as it is overseas. Well any diver who thinks that must take a trip on Spirit of Freedom. The crew were helpful, friendly and very accommodating of all the divers and the vast experience levels they had. They guided everyone that wanted a guide and gave excellent briefings to those that liked to explore themselves. Safety was forefront but it was never in a way we found restricting or burdensome. The crew were quietly attentive, the boat was always well organised & prepared.

Our skipper Jake had an open door policy which was great for those like Adam who wanted to know all about the vessel and the area we were transiting through. Fab and Tessa worked tirelessly to ensure that Jake had the backup he needed, while the instructors Kirin, Jack with dive guides and hostesses Sarah, Lala and Shannon ensured we had amazing dives and that we had everything we needed (often before even asking) during our surface intervals. No dive holiday is complete without food to fuel our energy and our Chef Kaz did an amazing job. All meals (even my gluten free options) were delicious.

As we came back into Cairns at the end of our journey, and the phone started buzzing as we came back into reception area I smiled as I thought how perfectly named the boat is. With great service, amazing diving, delicious food and no phone or internet that Spirit of Freedom from the everyday life is what we loved and will definitely see us returning in the not too distant future to once again dive some of our favourite sites which I have briefly described below.

To see some of the footage please subscribe to our Youtube page which we will be uploading shortly. To join us on our next trip in late October- Nov 2014 please book early here. Otherwise if you can’t join us or would like to go on this great trip earlier then follow this link.

Below are just a few of the sites we went to and loved but for a more detailed description and trip photos please go to our Spirit of Freedom Trip Director’s blog:

Steves Bommie – Steve’s Bommie was one of those dives you will never forget. Rising up from thirty-five metres to its apex at around five metres. We were astounded by the sheer quantity of schooling fish and the pristine condition of the corals. Lucky our guides also pointed out to us the welll camouflaged Stonefish, Leafy Scorpionfish, mantis shrimp, flame file shells. Adam and I sat for a good 20 mins at 5m just watching the schooling Giant Trevally smash into the clouds of colourful reef fish for a feed. It was better than any colourful fireworks I have seen!

Castles – Simon described this dive as reminding him of a playground, and as we weaved in and out of swim throughs and were greeted with brightly coloured coral it did feel like we were in a magical wonderland and as I saw Adam’s fins dissapear into many swim throughs I knew there were at least 2 kids enjoying this playground. At the edge of this lagoon the wall gradually dropped to 30m then had a sheer drop down a 1000m wall. The wall itself was covered in overhangs and sponges, with reef sharks and Queensland groupers cruising by in addition to the abundant small fish life on the shallower lagoon this was one of our favourite dives.

Admiralty – Admiralty is a popular afternoon and night diving spot. There is a reef maze amongst which a large variety of marine life make their home. From around thirty metres the reef drops off to depth in excess of a thousand metres. The area has many large caves and swim-throughs and an amazing series of sand bottom gullies leading up into the shallow lagoon area. Admiralty is so-named as it is the resting place of an old marine anchor, which can be seen in one of the many swim-throughs.

North Horn Wall – An amazing gentle Drift dive along a 1000 metre vertical wall starting along Osprey Reef’s Western Wall and finishing at North Horn. A diverse dive consisting of shallow caves, drop off’s, deeper overhangs with colourful soft corals, and a large variety of fish life both large and small. We saw massive potato cod, humphead parrotfish, plenty of reef sharks and big tuna!

Shark feed @ North Horn – Be prepared to have your adrenalin pumping on this dive as you cant get much closer to a frenzied shark feed than this! We are guided into a natural amphitheatre at North Horn where we sit and wait for the cage containing fish heads arrives to feed the waiting silver tip, grey reef, white tip sharks and massive potato cods giving the sharks a good run for their money. Perhaps you should just watch our shark feed on YouTube as words just can’t do it justice.

Monolith- The lesser-known neighbour of Challenger Bay, Monolith is a remarkable wall dive not to be overlooked. With an impressive field of fist coral cascading down the reef and a vast array of marine life calling this site home, you will not be disappointed. We are told that A lucky few may also glimpse the resident Hammerhead known to patrol the blue water off the wall, but we didn’t see them

Silver city – a few hundred metres from the “Castles” mooring lies this popular afternoon dive site. A 45 degree sloping wall, that descends down into the depths towards the 1000 metre wall. There are a series of volcano-style bommies rising just before the drop off, that extend along the length of the dive site. Some fantastic caves can be found along the sloping wall and there are regular breaks in the reef, allowing you to swin up into the shallow, sandy lagoon area.