Scuba Diving the Great Barrier Reef in Australia: What It's Really Like |

As the world’s largest coral reef system, stretching over 1,429 miles (2,300 kilometers) along Australia’s northeastern coast, the Great Barrier Reef is a bucket list destination. For me, I had always dreamt of scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef. However, planning a trip to the Great Barrier Reef, takes some planning.

First, you need to determine how you want to experience it. Do you want to see it from the air or from the water? Are you scuba certified or is snorkeling enough for you? There are a lot of options, and you need to make some choices.

Let’s take a look at some of those choices, along with information from my experience at the Great Barrier Reef scuba diving.

Disclosure: Some of the links below may be affiliate links. At no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission if you make a purchase.

Why dive the Great Barrier Reef?

The Great Barrier Reef in Australia is a UNESCO World Heritage site and a natural wonder of the world. With over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands, it is home to a staggering diversity of marine life. This includes over 400 species of hard and soft corals, sea turtles, reef sharks, clownfish, manta rays, and over 1,500 species of fish.

The Great Barrier Reef offers some of the most spectacular diving in the world. You’ll be able to immerse yourself in one of the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems.

Best Time to Dive the Great Barrier Reef

The reef offers diving opportunities year-round, but conditions vary. For the best visibility and calm seas, plan to dive June to November, also known as dry season. This is also the season for manta rays and dwarf minke whale encounters.

Alternatively, you can go December to May, which is wet season. This is when you’ll find warmer water but reduced visibility due to plankton blooms. However, November/December is when coral spawning typically occurs, which is a phenomenon worth experiencing.

5 Top Dive Sites at the Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is so big, and choosing where to dive can be overwhelming. Here are some must-visit Great Barrier Reef dive sites you may want to consider.

Cod Hole (Ribbon Reefs): Famous for its friendly potato cod, this site offers an up-close experience with these gentle giants. It’s suitable for all levels and has amazing coral formations and diverse marine life.

Osprey Reef: Located in the Coral Sea, Osprey Reef is known for its dramatic walls, incredible visibility, and the chance to see large pelagic species, like hammerhead sharks.

SS Yongala Wreck: Considered one of the best wreck dives at the Great Barrier Reef, the SS Yongala, sunk in 1911, is teeming with marine life, including giant trevally, sea snakes, and turtles.

Flynn Reef: This Great Barrier dive site is perfect for beginners and night divers. Its shallow coral gardens and swim-throughs are home to fish and invertebrates.

Heron Island: Known for its easy shore dives and proximity to stunning coral gardens, Heron Island is a favorite for divers and snorkelers alike.

How to Dive the Great Barrier Reef

When diving the Great Barrier Reef, you can start your trip from Cairns, Port Douglas, or Arlie Beach, with Cairns being the most common jumping off point. Choose from a quick day trip to multi-day liveaboards.

Day Trips to the Great Barrier Reef

Departing from Cairns, Port Douglas, or Airlie Beach, these trips are perfect for those short on time. They typically include 1-3 dives, along with options for snorkeling. Operators often provide lunch, onboard briefings, and all necessary equipment.

Popular Great Barrier Reef day trips often visit sites like Green Island and the outer reef locations closer to the mainland.

Great Barrier Reef Liveaboards

If you have more time (and money), liveaboards at the Great Barrier Reef provide access to more remote and pristine reefs like the Ribbon Reefs and Coral Sea. These multi-day excursions allow for up to five dives a day, including night dives.

Great Barrier Liveaboards cater to a range of budgets, from basic accommodations to luxury vessels, and often feature expert marine biologists to learn all about the reef. These trips are perfect for experienced divers who want to explore less-visited parts of the reef.

Not a Scuba Diver? Try an Introductory Dive at the Great Barrier Reef

Many dive operators also offer options for first-timers, including instruction and guided dives. These “Discover Scuba Diving” Great Barrier Reef programs provide a short training session, followed by closely supervised dives in shallow, calm areas.

It’s an excellent way for non-certified divers to experience the Great Barrier Reef without committing to a full certification course. Introductory dives often take place at accessible and beginner-friendly sites like Low Isles or Agincourt Reef.

Plan Your Day Trip to the Great Barrier Reef

Throughout my adventures in Australia, as I slowly made my way from Melbourne up all the way through Cairns, I learned a lot from other travelers about diving the Great Barrier Reef. For one, I had been warned by friends and various tour operators to be very selective about the part of the reef you go to.

Many sections of the reef are frequently visited by tours meaning they are not just crowded but also the coral reefs are damaged and dying. I was also warned against taking a large tours that is highly commercialized with 100+ tourists per trip. Look for smaller boats and groups.

How much does it cost to dive the Great Barrier Reef?

There’s no way around it, diving the Great Barrier Reef is expensive. We were fortunate to get our trip with Island Diver through Cairns Dive Center (CDC) at a last-minute discounted rate. This meant we were able to scuba dive at snorkeling prices. It still ran us close to $150 AUD for the day. While that may not be a lot for some day trips, it’s certainly way above most backpacker’s budgets!

What if you’re traveling with someone who’s not a diver?

While I have my advanced dive certification, I had a friend with me who was not certified. This originally had me concerned, but it was actually no problem. There are many day trips to the Great Barrier Reef that offer snorkeling, intro dives for non-certified divers, and your typical dives for certified divers.

I think the biggest thing to know here is that because these trips do combine everyone’s capabilities, the destinations the boat goes to will obviously be much more shallow. I wouldn’t say this is a bad thing as the reef has a lot of amazing places to explore, and you will use air less quickly meaning you can explore further.

Confirm Your Trip

Most tour companies like to touch base the day before, or even the day of, to make sure everything is ready to go. For us, we had to confirm the day of, which thank goodness we actually followed directions as they had us down for January 9, not December 9! Please follow what your tour operator asks you to do – Otherwise they may leave you behind!

The view of the mainland of Australia on our boat ride out to the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns, Australia

My Review of a Day Trip to the Great Barrier Reef

The adventure of a lifetime is here! It’s finally the day to explore one of the Wonders of the World! Head down to the pier to arrive on time as there will be plenty of preparations awaiting you.

Preparing at the Pier

If you’re a certified diver, you know the drill… it’s time to check in and gear up! At check-in, we had to pay the $20 Reef Conservation fee, get sized for fins and stinger suits, sign the waiver forms, and of course get my certification card checked.

Apparently, Cairns has very strict diving regulations to include certification checking and requiring every diver to use a dive computer – first place I’ve encountered that! Luckily all equipment, including the dive computer, was included in the cost of the day. We took advantage of the time at the pier to also start making friends with the people on the boat. Shortly there after, we were off to the Great Barrier Reef!

Boating Out to the Great Barrier Reef

The boat ride out to our first dive location was a solid two hours bumping along through the ocean. The staff were handing out sick bags like they were candy as the day trippers started turning green from seasickness. I was shocked that 7 out of 25 took the bags in fear of being ill. Fortunately, no one was actually sick. As the engines came to a stop, it was clear to see the relief on people’s faces. We had arrived!

Getting the Dive Brief

During the boat ride, the staff divided us into groups to give the dive (and snorkel) briefings. This is when I learned there was only one other certified diver on the boat, and we would be diving with a Danish dive master trainee, Simon. Apparently, it’s common for boats to have few to no certified divers on board. I was quite shocked by this!

The boat heading out to go diving at the Great Barrier Reef

Arriving at Our Dive Site: The Fish Bowl

Ready to dive in, we suited up and made our giant stride off the boat and descended into the depths of the Fish Bowl – our first dive site. As expected, the sea life was highly impressive with lots of fish and coral. This is what the Fish Bowl is best known for – hence the name! It was honestly everything I had hoped the Great Barrier Reef could be!

My only complaint was our dive leader, Simon, had not planned out the dive well. We frequently were descending then ascending multiple meters at a time, and it was the first time I had seen a dive leader surface to find the boat. Whatever happened to navigation skills???

Besides my unimpressed view of Simon, I was quite impressed with the reef itself. It was truly what I had come to see anyway. We only went down to 14.5 meters, but realistically there was a lot of shallow reef around, and it meant we could spend more time exploring as we used our air slower. In addition to all of the fish and coral, we also had two sightings of white tip reef sharks. (Don’t worry, they are not dangerous to people.)

Eating Lunch on the Water and Snorkeling

Lunch was served on the boat, and everyone had the opportunity to snorkel around before and after lunch. There were plenty of shallow parts around the Fish Bowl to explore from the surface. In fact, parts of it were so shallow I had to swim as flat as possible to avoid scraping the coral.

Snorkeling at the Second Site

Our next stop was a small white sand island with reef surrounding it. Here everyone went snorkeling – no matter their skill level. It was not as impressive as the Fish Bowl, but there was definitely sea life. I found a blue spotted stingray, a tiny black tipped reef shark, and a lobster in addition to numerous types of fish.

We also had the opportunity to explore the island, which legitimately took ten minutes to walk around. It was just sand, no plant life. After spending a while exploring this site, it was back on the boat to bounce the couple of hours back to Cairns.

A tiny white sand island along the Great Barrier Reef — Tiny Sand Island

What I Learned from Diving the Great Barrier Reef

While I would say I thoroughly enjoyed our day trip to the Great Barrier Reef, there are a few things I would have done differently, and I would urge you to do the same.

I love being able to be spontaneous and book things as I go, but this bucket list item would have been better planned ahead of time. It would have allowed me to do more research and read reviews on the various dive sites along the Great Barrier Reef and the Tour Companies. I think this could have resulted in a better overall experience with a more advanced dive leader.

I would recommend finding a day trip that had two dives vs. one dive and snorkeling. As a diver, I want to dive! I’m sure you can relate.

Traveling with a non-diver does change the experience as you will end up with more snorkelers or “intro” dives which requires shallower locations.

All in all, there is nothing that would have dissuaded me from doing a diving day trip to explore the Great Barrier Reef, but now I want to go back and do it all over again!

Plan More of Your Time in Australia

Australia is an amazing country to explore, but it is also HUGE. While diving the Great Barrier Reef is likely one of the highlights of your trip, you won’t want to miss the opportunity to see more of the country! Here are some posts to help you plan it.

Like this post? Pin it.

Scuba Diving the Great Barrier Reef in Australia: What It’s Really Like