Cairns Liveaboard Two Day – One Night

 

 

2 Day liveaboard on a Cairns liveaboard scuba diving and snorkeling tour – This is not going to be a story like your parents may have told you about having to walk 5 miles to school each day, up hill each way.

However, when I started diving a Liveaboard diving experience was much different that what you can experience today.

Most Liveaboard diving was a week long trip and few of the vessels were originally designed for diving. If you could find a shorter trip, you generally lost a day in transits time to the diving sites.

My first Liveaboard about 15 years ago was a 3 night cruise on a 60 foot sail boat, the diving was great, but every thing else: from the closet size stateroom with shared facilities, no comfortable public spaces, cramped deck space, to the cook who was a college student working to earn some extra money was terrible.

It so much different today you can not realize it.

Cairns Liveaboard Or Floating Resort

Over the last decade the Liveaboard diving industry has changed. Much of the change has been driven by visions of pioneers from Cairns that changed the Liveaboard from a sole purpose event to a lifestyle event.

Scuba Dive vessels both daily and Liveaboards are specially designed for diving and comfort.

Like hotels the comfort range varies from basic to luxurious.

Many of these new designs have all the features of boutique hotels. Often it becomes a question in some people minds, is it a Liveaboard or resort?

The Overnight Liveaboard Floating Resort

One of the changes that has made a big difference in the way that divers and their non-diving partners look at Liveaboards is the flexible stays that some of them offer.

The MV Reef Encounter is a prime example of blurring the line. First and foremost, the MV Reef Encounter is a diving Liveaboard with all the items that a diver will want.

A spacious dive platform, an on-board compressor, professional dive staff and access to a wide range of dive sites and locations.

The MV Reef Encounter has only ocean view staterooms with en-suite facilities, a spacious sun deck, air condition lounge and bar area, a hot tub, helipad and excellent meals served by the chef.

The MV Reef Encounter offers six water sessions a day for scuba or snorkeling, and travels to two or three reefs each day.

She also does not restrict her guest to a strict sailing schedule.

Guest can stay one night or more. Transfer from the Port in Cairns are done by a vessel from a sister company. Any guest wishing to join the MV Reef Encounter, merely meets the MV Reef Experience at Marlin Marina in time for its 8:00 am sailing.

The MV Reef Experience will bring the guest to the Encounter around 10 am with breakfast en route. Any guest wanting to return to the main land will be picked up around 3 pm by the Reef Experience for the return trip.

The Reef encounter stay on station between the various outer reefs, maximizing the guest on-board experience.

This type of arrangement makes it not only possible but convenient for divers to have a diving weekend on a Liveaboard.

The multiple purpose function of the vessel means that snorkelers are also very comfortable

Dive, Dive, Dive

stay on Australia's Great Barrier Reef on Reef Encounter
Scuba Dive, Great Barrier Reef

No, not the command of a submarine skipper in a war movie, the options available on a Liveaboard vessel.

A typical land base dive resort will give you time for two dives and maybe if there are enough divers who sign up a night dive.

A full day on a Liveaboard such as the MV Reef Encounter  will given you four dives out of a six water session offered each day.

One of those sessions will be a twilight or night dive.

On an overnight stay a diver will have five dives plus one night dive and two snorkeling sessions.

When arriving on the Reef Encounter the diver and non-certified companions will have time to settle into their staterooms and try out the snorkeling before lunch.

After a lunch the divers will receive an orientation and then a site brief before their first dive of the day.

Those who are not certified divers will have a snorkeling orientation and can schedule a free resort dive.

There are two water sessions between lunch and dinner.

Dinner is served in the dinning area on the main desk having been prepared by the chef using the freshest ingredients. After dinner certified divers can participate in a twilight/ night dive.

Early the next morning you will want to get up and be ready for a sunrise dive on the reef.

Sunrise is a magical time on the reef, the activity is at its highest and the sunlight brings everything to life. After a hardy breakfast, it back for two more water sessions.

This gives the diver three scuba dives before lunch. After lunch you can lay back and relax on the sun deck or in the hot tub for a few hours, or get in some snorkeling before the MV Reef Experience drops by to pick you up around 2:45.

What A Way To Scuba Dive

It clear when you examine an overnight Liveaboard against a land base resort that most people will find that the Cairns Liveaboard is a much better choice.

The Liveaboard can only accommodate the number of divers who can sleep on-board, while at the resort bus loads may show up to dive alongside you.

A Liveaboard has no unproductive time going from the dive site back to the resort a few times.

Clearly for most, clearly for me this is the way have a weekend dive trip.

Book your 2 day liveaboard tour today