Diving With Turtles Cairns Best Locations Gear Meals Included Prices Small Groups

Ok first, some information about sea turtles. Sea turtles are found all over the Great Barrier Reef. In fact, The Great Barrier Reef is home to 6 of the Worlds 7 species of marine Sea Turtles! They Are:

• Loggerhead (Caretta caretta) ...
• Green turtle (Chelonia mydas) ...
• Leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) ...
• Hawksbill (Eretmochelys imbricata) ...
• Kemp's ridley (Lepidochelys kempii) ...
• Olive ridley (Lepidochelys olivacea) ...
• Flatback (Natator depressa)

The Great Barrier Reef is home to the following 6 Species of Sea Turtle:

• Hawksbill Turtle.
• Flatback Turtle.
• Green Sea Turtle.
• Olive Ridley Turtle.
• Leatherback Turtle.
• Loggerhead Turtle.

Turtles can be seen from the beach, from sand cays, while snorkelling, scuba diving, from semi-submarines and from glass bottom boats.

A few tips on where you tend to see more sea turtles from Cairns are:

1. Sea Turtles love to eat sea grass, algae, some eat crustations and jellyfish. In fact, many love to eat a specific type of food called - sea sponges.

Ribbon Reefs Full of life.

Giant Potato Cod, Cod Hole

Gorgonian Sea Fan

Spotted Sweetlip Fish.

Soft Coral Osprey Reef

Sea Turtles

Scuba diving in Australia can be broken into 3 main regions.

1. The Great Barrier Reef located on the North East Coast of Queensland.
2. The Central Coast of Maloolabah, Byron Bay, South West Rocks, Port Macquarie, and Sydney.
3. The Great Ocean Road, Melbourne and Western Australia Ningaloo Reef.

The first and most famous place for scuba diving in Australia is the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef offers spectacular diving on coral walls teaming with life, giant coral bays and coral gardens, deep bommies, swim thru's, small caverns, caves and a large array of marine animals.

Scuba Divers can expect to find many species of marine life, including sea turtles, giant clams, white tip and black tip reefs sharks, grey whaler reef sharks, giant mauri wrasse, schooling barracuda, queenfish, giant trevally, cuttlefish, moray eels, flame file shells, octopus, lionfish, glassfish, wobbegong reef sharks, parrot fish and sometimes whale sharks and manta rays.

The water temperatures are warm, ranging from around 22 to 29 degrees Celsius, this offers all year round diving. Check out our month by month guide for diving the Great Barrier Reef.

As the largest reef system on earth, the Great Barrier Reef stretches more than 2800klm. It is made up of hundreds of smaller reefs offering amazing bio-diversity and marine life. Divers can visit the reef three different ways.

What are the highlights?

The highlights of diving in Australia are absolutely diving the Great Barrier Reef. The southern parts of Australia do offer some unique diving experiences like cave diving with Grey Nurse sharks at South West Rocks and Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia. But diving on the Great Barrier Reef is regarded as the real gem of diving in Australia.

Where are the best dive sites found?

The best dive sites are found on the Great Barrier Reef teaming with life, superb coral and large schools of fish. Here is a list of the top 10 dives sites on the Great Barrier Reef.

1. Osprey Reef Shark Dive at the North Horn Dive Site.
2. Holmes Reef located East of Cairns in the Coral Sea.
3. Steve's Bommie, Ribbon Reef Number 10.
4. The Cod Hole, Northern Ribbon Reefs Lizard Island.
5. Yongalla Ship Wreck (Alva Beach).
6. Three Sisters, Milln Reef Cairns.
7. Lighthouse Bommie (Dwarf Minke Whale Encounters)
8. Pixie Pinnacle Dive Site Ribbon Reef 9.
9. Whale Bommie Milln Reef.
10. Barracuda Bommie, Agincourt Reef 2, Port Douglas.

What can you expect to see diving in Australia?

If we talk about the best place to scuba dive in Australia, nearly all signs point to the Great Barrier Reef. Diving on the Great Barrier Reef you can expect to see a large array of marine species teaming with life. Expect to find tiny nudibranchs, seahorses, and shrimps to large grey whaler reef sharks, giant mauri wrasse reef fish, schooling giant trevally, queenfish and sea turtles of all species. The Great Barrier Reef is made up of hundreds of different species of soft and hard corals. Giant Gorgonian red sea fans, Sea Whips, Sponges, Anenome's, Bolder Corals, Brain Corals and much more.

Conclusion: