FROM $225 · DAY TRIP
Reef days on Mabel
Three dives on the outer reef for certified divers. Snorkellers and first-timers welcome, with an instructor in the water for intro dives.
Trips & prices →
Great Barrier Reef · from Cairns
Sixteen on the boat. Not three hundred.
Mabel is our 15-metre dive boat. Every day she takes 16 guests out to Hastings, Saxon or Norman reef for three dives, and brings everyone home with their logbook stamped.
LOG No. 0412TODAY
Saxon Reef
- Max depth
- 14 m
- Bottom time
- 48 min
- Visibility
- 20 m
- Water
- 26°C
- Saw
- Green turtle, 2 whitetips, a very nosy Maori wrasse
Buddy
What we do
Get on the boat, learn to dive, or just borrow the gear
FROM $895 · 4 DAYS
Learn to dive
Two days in town for the theory and the pool, then two days on the reef. Small groups, and the same instructor the whole way through.
Courses →
FROM $10 / DAY
Gear hire & servicing
Off on a liveaboard? Pick up a computer, a full kit or a prescription mask the afternoon before. Moose services regs under the house.
Gear & servicing →
A day on Mabel
Here's the whole day, drawn like a dive profile
About 90 minutes out, three dives with proper surface intervals in between, lunch on the top deck and home in time for a swim at the lagoon.
Certified divers
Snorkellers
Safety stop at 5 m
16guests, max
3dives a day
~30nautical miles out
4crew on board
The shop
An old Queenslander, with the gear room under the house
The shop's in a 1930s timber house on stumps in Parramatta Park, ten minutes' walk from the marina. Like every Queenslander, the good stuff happens underneath.
- Upstairs, the counterBookings, course paperwork, logbooks and a small shop of masks, fins and reef-safe sunscreen.
- The coffee windowOpens at 6:30 for the boat crowd. Locals come for the toasties. It's where the name came from.
- Under the houseHire gear, rinse tanks and a lot of wetsuits drip-drying in the breeze.
- Moose's benchRegulator and BCD servicing, cylinder checks and any other gear that's had a hard week.
Why we keep it small
You get the reef, not the queue
The big boats are great at what they do. We do something else.
- Never more than 16 guests, so there's always room on the dive deck
- Intro divers go down two at a time with an instructor, holding hands if they want
- Certified divers dive in small groups with a guide, or with their buddy if they've got the experience
- The skipper picks the sites on the morning, depending on the wind
- We stamp your logbook, and Kenji will point out your turtle on the slate
Nothing new
Cairns has been taking people to the reef for a century
In 1931 the boat out to Green Island was a timber ketch called the Merinda, and the passengers went ashore by rowboat. We've swapped the sails for a diesel and the rowboat for a dive deck, but the feeling when you get your first look at the reef hasn't changed.
Our story