Let’s be honest… you CAN’T go to Australia without at least entertaining a plan to visit the Great Barrier Reef.

It wasn’t any different for me, my mom and my brother.

The question was really… where to even start the research! There are an inordinate amount of companies with all different kinds of services for reef visits, and even a few jumping off points on the mainland to *get* to the reef from… but at least that second part is easier. Cairns is far and away the best and most popular locale to stay in for your Great Barrier Reef excursion. The first part… a complete struggle.

After I started my research… and by started I mean slaved away at the computer for probably 5 hours and becoming increasingly exasperated, I stumbled across visitcairns.com. Essentially at the end of my rope and unwilling to explore even one more website that day, I ended up shooting off a quick email to their “contact us” address asking about diving recommendations and hoping for the best.

I ended up with the most epic customer service representative, Heidi.

Heidi put up with SO MUCH DRAMA from myself and my family, I don’t know how she remained nice through the entire thing. However, I was incredibly grateful, because she had extensive experience with the Cairns diving industry and was able to advise me and my family regarding the best options for us.

What do I mean?

Well… mom has a host of medical issues that don’t allow her to free-dive, but she was initially considering a helmet dive. Matt and I wanted to do “resort” free-dives, since we’re uncertified. Oh, and also, we wanted to go all together if possible.

We found out from Heidi that that was a pretty tall order. Impossible, in fact.

However, after spending almost an hour on Skype with Heidi AND my mom, we determined that the best thing for all three of us would be to take the SilverSwift. My brother and I would do two introductory dives on the boat, and mom would go on up to three guided snorkels (SilverSwift stops at three different reef locations per day).  Heidi recommended SilverSwift for us because she said that not only did the boat reach the reef the quickest, but it also had some of the most breathtaking reef locations of all of the vessels currently mooring in Cairns.

Sold.

All of us booked on the outer barrier reef cruise with 3 locations, snorkelling, lunch, morning and afternoon tea and Matt and I added on 2 Intro Dives each.

Fast forward to the morning of our dive trip, the weather was MISERABLE! Completely grey skies, pretty consistent rain, and chilly… definitely a far cry from the clear skied, sunny day we imagined for our dive trip. But once you’re underwater, it really doesn’t matter if it’s raining!

We boarded the SilverSwift easily in the morning, filled out our dive paperwork, and were treated to a very nice breakfast spread with cakes and warm drinks, which were especially appreciated on the grimy day. The boat also offered anti-nausea pills for a cheap price, which I purchased for my brother and I, since I’ve been known to get a bit seasick on speedboats. Thaaaaaank goodness we did. Even having taken the medicine, both Matt and I were minutes away from tossing our cookies by the time we reached the first dive site — frankly we barely were able to pay attention to the dive briefing!
Once we were at the first dive site though, mom went off to snorkel and Matt and I pulled on our gear (awesome to note: SilverSwift has special goggles for people who wear glasses! Little bro took advantage of this for sure) and met our instructor. We were pleasantly surprised to find that we had our very own instructor for our first dive, which from what I’ve seen before is unheard of! I had done a few dives before, but it was Matt’s first time, so he had to really get the hang of the skills on the first dive, but he caught on pretty quickly and we had a great dive. Our instructor was excellent and we were able to check out a variety of different types of marine life that I had never seen before, like christmas tree anemones, carpet reef, and a ton of other things! Of course, we also got to see a tiny clownfish, which since the inception of Finding Nemo is a diving essential.

Once we were back on the boat after dive 1, we dried off a bit and then the SilverSwift headed to site 2, where to be honest I took a nap!!! I’m terrified of snorkelling, so mom and Matt went out for a snorkel without me. There’s just something about the air tube and the fact that the water can get in the tube to choke me that I just can’t master! Diving, I’m good for days! Snorkelling, no thanks!

Anyhow! A bit before mom and Matt returned, lunch was served, so I woke up from my nap and grabbed a platter. There were hot and cold items, including things like sushi, salads, curry, grilled chicken, and probably 5 other items. There was ALSO tomato soup in mugs, which I went for twice. I definitely did NOT go hungry!! It wasn’t haute cuisine, but it was better than “edible.”

Mom and Matt eventually returned and also had some lunch too.

Then, SilverSwift took off for the third dive site of the day! Matt and I were diving again, and this time we had the same instructor but also an additional diver with us. At first we were bummed, but once we were in the water, our instructor told us that he didn’t think we needed to be linked up anymore with him, and we could link with each other and swim independently behind him and the other diver. SCORE! That has never happened to me before so I was pretty psyched and so was Matt. We had another amazing dive, including me trying out a few barrel rolls… but which was punctuated by not one, but TWO SEATURTLES. We serendipitously ran into them right near the SilverSwift photographer, so we got to capture the luck forever with some photos… which of course we HAD to buy because TURTLES!

Once we were back on board from site 3/dive 2, the SilverSwift staff offered us the afternoon coffee and snack break, we grabbed some more anti-nausea pills, and zipped back to shore!

After a LONG day at sea, the fam was exhausted but so pleased. Even mom said she had an amazing, life-changing day, which if you know my mom, is definitely saying something! Visitcairns.com and the SilverSwift were impeccable service providers and I’d definitely work with either of both of them again!