If, like me, you love scuba diving then there is one destination that always holds a certain mystery and attraction, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. Whilst you may have dived in many destinations there is a certain appeal with this reef above any other. Is it the size, the animals or the location? Probably a different appeal for everyone, but for me it is was the fish, particularly the big fish, sharks. I have always been fascinated by sharks, and up to the point had only seen relatively small sharks, mostly less than 2m so I figured that the Great Barrier Reef would give me an opportunity for a real man eating shark dive.

There are a number of towns and cities in Australia that are good for visiting the barrier reef but the main jumping off point is Cairns. Cairns is in the North East of Australia and is a relatively small city, it is heavily focused on tourism and is very popular with international tourists, particularly from Japan. It is mainly aimed at the budget/backpacking traveler and there are lots of attractions for this market. Undoubtedly the most popular is diving.

There is a glut of dive companies to go out with, but in my opinion you are better going with a smaller company as the dive should be less crowded, although you are likely to see a number of boats at any destination. It is also possible to organize liveaboard trips but I think you might want to do this in Airlie beach and combine it with a trip around the Whitsunday Islands.

So you get suited up and you jump in, with your group you start to explore the underwater world what will you see? You will see masses of coral of all types and colours beware that some is poisonous, always follow the rule, if you don’t know its Latin name don’t touch it, frankly even if you do it is just better to not touch anything as you are more likely to harm whatever you are touching. Ok beautiful coral but what about the fish…well expect to see Angelfish, butterfly fish, groupers, parrotfish, surgeonfish, clown fish, damsel fish, wrasse particularly Maori wrasse which is a huge but extremely docile fish and trigger fish. Trigger fish are not so docile particularly in the mating season, they can give a nasty bite, so for the most part avoid going too close or threatening them. You may see some turtles, I did not see any here but did further south and of course sharks. The sharks, well I only saw a couple and they were small (1m), these were black tip reef sharks there are other varieties but I did not see any and they were extremely timid and would have done well to give more than a nasty nip. Man eating uh not quite, possible very small child or more likely a small pet eating shark dive.

Now for any experienced diver, the list I just gave will not enthrall them, in fact it is a fairly typical list of any tropical reef dive and there’s the rub. I have dived in 7 countries and have a good number of dives to my name, most have been in tropical waters and to a greater or lesser extent I have enjoyed all. The Great barrier reef dives I did in Cairns get a very average rating I also dived from Airlie beach this was better but only because there were less people and we saw whales from the boat. The best locations for a real man eating shark dive in Australia are over on the west coast around Perth. Cairns is great for beginners as the water is a nice temperature, generally calm and there is a lot to see, for the more advanced diver I think you may be slightly under whelmed. I still think you have to dive this destination if only to say you have dived it, diving is enjoyable anywhere and here is no exception just don’t expect to be bowled over.

So for me Cairns diving gets an average grade, and if anyone is interested in my best and worst dives, they are:

Worst dive - Sihanoukville, Cambodia hands down the worst dive. Nothing to see combined with cloudy waters, a dive instructor who did not know the area and ran out of air well before anyone else and crappy weather, so all in pretty rubbish, but then who comes here to dive?

Best dive - Pacific Harbour, Fiji. The area is very special for soft coral and fish varieties, but for me the key was that here you can do a shark dive. This is a real man eating shark dive with no cages, open water, no protection and a lot of very big sharks. They do a shark feed here and you need an advanced certificate to fully enjoy this but here you can expect to see lots of sharks including fully grown bull sharks and possible even a tiger shark which will take food from the instructors hand! This truly is an amazing experience and most definitely a real man eating shark dive.