After arriving in Cairns late the night before & getting up for an early brunch (with coffee of course) we were excited to head over to the Mike Ball offices, check in & drop off our bags. (These would magically appear in our cabins once we boarded.)
We spent the day exploring Cairns, especially along the waterfront area, full of parks & bird watching spaces. Then it was time for an early dinner before meeting the crew & our fellow divers before boarding Spoil Sport – our home for the next 7 days. A night of briefings doesn’t sound like fun but we were all excited to hear about our adventures ahead. We were also introduced to Dr Alastair Birtles, the world’s leading expert on the Dwarf Minke Whale. He spent his evenings talking to us about the Minkes – identifications, behaviours & populations, and his days (very long days) on the roof looking for them.
The cries of “Wakey wakey – rise & shine” at 6:30am was our sign to get up for first breakfast & prepare for our first dive of the trip at Summer Bay. Definitely a check out site, the corals were not as colourful as what we would see later in our trip, but we did see a Whitetip Reef Shark, Giant Clams and a sleeping Dogfaced Pufferfish.
The second dive at Steve’s Bommie set the tone of the trip and was our favourite site & one we returned to later on. We came face to face with an Olive Sea Snake, visited Anemone City, schools of Barracuda, Unicorn Fish & Yellow Snapper, several swimming Lionfish & plenty of colourful reef fish. On later dives we also saw Longnose Hawkfish (one of Claire’s favourites, Stonefish & an Ornate Wobbegong. Awesome!
Other highlights included Two Towers with both Green & Hawksbill Turtles, the Cod Hole with 1 large Potato Cod, Gotham City with Batfish and finally our last dive at Flare Point. Lots of canyons and caves up in the shallows with Whitetip Reef Sharks chilling out and the largest turtle we have ever seen – possibly a Loggerhead Turtle but he was hiding head down in the cave so we can’t confirm the ID.
Night dives are always awesome but with Red Snapper, Giant Trevally, Whitetip & Grey Reef Sharks hunting smaller fish by your torchlight they are amazing! Alan described one of these dives as his best night diver ever.
On a sad note – we didn’t see any Dwarf Minkes Whales☹ One whale did do a swim by and a few divers were lucky enough to see him for all of 1 min. Alan did catch a glimpse of one as it surfaced for a breath and Claire saw some Spinner Dolphins, including a calf, while searching for whales from the roof top. Unfortunately, Minkes do not often breach, spout or hang out at the surface which makes them very difficult to spot unlike some of their larger cousins.
On our return to shore we spent a few days in Port Douglas exploring the surrounding areas – Kuranda, Mossman Valley and Cape Tribulation, including a crocodile tour on the Daintree River.
Overall our trip with Mike Ball was fantastic the crew were friendly & helpful, and the food tasty and plentiful. The dive sites with their corals and marine life were great and having an open deck policy with the ability to have longer dives (60-70 minutes) made for a relaxed dive experience. The snorkelers were also well looked after and saw plenty of action on the reefs while we were diving.
The trip was so good we have already booked a return trip for June 2028 with 4 & 7 night options available. Our fingers are crossed for a more successful Dwarf Minke Whale experience though!
Visit our website for more trip information or talk to Claire & Alan or other club divers about their trip.
We hope to have you join us as we have plans to make the next trip even better….
Will you be in the next group photo?
