Australia - Great Barrier Reef - Cod Hole and south Liveaboard : Mike Ball's Supersport (Early July 2000)
Author: Ilan Ben Tov

I just returned from a 3 day liveaboard to the Great Barrier Reef on Mike Ball's Supersport and thought this boat was mentioned in a previous report some words of compliments are due the boat is well organized and the diving crew is very professional.

Day-1:
7 A.M meeting at Cairns Colonial Club registration and a ride to the airport for our flight to Lizard Island it is a low flight in a light airplane and it gives you some understanding about why the Great Barrier Reef is called this way although it should be name the Great Barrier Reefs since it is composed of lots of reefs. We land at Lizard Island and board the boat a briefing a warning about the hard weather conditions in the way to the Cod hole and we start sailing it is a rough two hours sailing against the wind. At the Cod Hole the boat is docking at the inner side of the reef so it is protected from the wind we enter the water and we started to see the large potato cods that this site is famous for the reef itself is nice and has some really giant clams but the large potato Cods steal the show. Next dive at the Cod hole is the Potato Cod feeding we descend to a sandy bottom and the dive master equipped with dead fish starts displaying the fish and soon we are surrounded with potato cods some other types of cod and lots of big red bass that are trying to snap the fish from each other. Night dive is at Challenger Bay the reef at night is beautiful lot of Jacks hunting at night the corals has plenty of different types of shrimps and we are followed by a large potato cod who try to hunt in the light of our torches a very nice experience.

Day-2:
Morning dive at Pixies Bommie a (Bommie is the Australian word for a coral pinnacle) its an isolated pinnacle of corals and we simply diving around it in spiral path from the bottom to the surface the bommie is covered with soft Coral Sea anemones and lots of feather stars. We sail to the Pixie lighthouse a location that is the resident winter location of a pod of Minkie Whales and soon the boat is surrounded by them. The boat has two ropes floating from the back and the snorkeling is very simple you stay in the water hang the rope and the whales are doing all the work they are very curious and come as close as one meter to you it is a very impressive experience and though the Minkie whales are not relatively a big whale (they reach a maximum length of 8 meters) they are still very impressive, I snorkel for two hours and after lunch the wind condition allows diving it is blue water diving and it is very similar to the snorkeling we descend to a depth between 10 to 15 meters and wait for the whales to come and they simply swim around us very curious and the experience now is in 3D. Night Dive is at the Pixie Lighthouse and the dive is very similar to the night dive at Challenger Bay but this time there is no potato cod to follow us.

Day-3:
Morning dive at Harrier reef and then a dive at Steve's Bommie witch is a bigger version of Pixies bommie the bommie is surrounded with shoals of Jacks Spanish Mackerel Barracudas and is very rich with underwater life a very good dive site only to be shadowed by the next site the fish market witch is a bigger version of steve's bommie and the site like its name is covered with shoals of different types of fish Jacks antiases yellow stripe goat fish witch form a very colorful yellow shoals barracudas some white tip reef sharks sea turtles and the amazing thing about this site is the fact that in one minute you can see 5 different types of clown fish amazing site well worth the 2 dives we dove and a good desert for the last dive.

Day-4:
After a night sailing we reach Yorkeys Knob in the morning and sadly this liveaboard has reached its end.

Summary : a very professionally run liveaboard highly recommended.

another recommendation one for above the water is to dedicate some days for seeing the rainforest around cairns lots of one to several days tours are operating from Cairns.

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