Here’s Brian’s video of our 1st Liveaboard.

This trip was one of our most memorable dive trips since its our first liveaboard! It was also our first time to bring our own diving gear internationally. When Brian knew about a business trip in Sydney, we eventually thought of diving in the Great Barrier reef. However, reviews were not that great and some acquaintances even mentioned that it is a little similar to our local dive sites where you see mostly reef fishes. Upon further research, we read about Mike Ball expedition, which was one of the top rated liveaboards that go outside the Great Barrier reef. One challenging thing for us though was the idea of not having a dive guide. Another first time for us! So prior to our trip, we practiced diving with our dive guide behind us, planning our own dive profile and making sure we know how to navigate our compasses.

We flew from Sydney to Cairns for 3 hours. From Cairns, we met with other fellow divers and had dinner before boarding Spoilsport. Spoilsport is a twin-hull boat with the dive deck at the back. Our cabin was situated at the very front which was never a good thing for us during the crossings. Our first night for the crossing was VERY ROUGH, we felt like pancakes in a pan while sleeping. The only time I wish theres a “seat belt” for the bed. Brian got really seasick and I couldn’t even help because the moment I open my eyes, I would feel the same.

But like a rainbow after a rain, we had a really calm sea when we arrived the next day in the Cod Hole. Underwater was just as calm and barely any current. We saw a couple of friendly potato cods who are used to divers around them.

Visibility was amazing in all our dive sites. Because of minimal current, it was very easy to do a buddy dive, we just have to know how to get back to the mooring. We explored a lot of swim throughs and saw huge sea fans in most sites. Clownfish anemones were also very colorful as compared to what we see locally in our country.

Our favorite dive site in this whole trip was the North Horn in the Osprey reef. The highlight of the trip, which was the shark feeding was done here! We saw hundreds of reef sharks. It was an amazing sight!

We even collected some shark teeth after the feeding frenzy.

After this dive trip, we learned a lot and felt more confident with diving by ourselves. We loved buddy diving as it helped me and Brian with our communication skills underwater and created a lot of teamwork.

This was official video we got from our videographer on board: