Dive the Great Barrier Reef with Spirit of Freedom: Australia’s Premier Liveaboard Adventure

The diving done from the ship pictured above was easily some of the best I’ll ever do in my entire life. 200 foot (60 m) visibility or more, soft coral galore, sharks, cod, sea snakes. Nothing we saw was mediocre, all of it was gleaming and numerous. Want to see whales too? Come in December (or any of Australia’s winter months) and you can check whales off the list too!

Typically I would start with a title here first but instead I’m going to break down this post for you:
First I’m going to talk about the rooms, the food, all the living elements. 
Then I’ll talk diving :)
Finally, I’ll briefly talk about our Lizard Island excursion but most of the lizard island excursion (for New Years) will be in it’s own blog post linked here and below:

Click for Lizard Island

The Rooms

I’m going to talk specifically about our room. For information on other rooms please visit this link: https://www.spiritoffreedom.com.au/vessel/cabins
I was really satisfied with our room! It was everything we needed and there were no surprises. We had a standard double/ twin share room. I took the little bed on the top and my mom had the monster below. Something they don’t tell you? There is a lot of storage space under the bed and it’s not nasty. We definitely stored our bags there. The bathroom only has space for one person at a time but there was plenty of hanging space for wet items. Here’s a of our room being lived in!

The Food

I was very pleased with the food. Lady Eliot Island definitely took the cake with the food overall but considering the more limited facilities of the ship they did a great job. I did not eat much food for dinner because the dining area made me very nauseated. Having everyone gather on a rocking boat with hot lights and a low ceiling made me extra queasy. On top of that add food and I was shortly down in the room which was much better. However, the New Years dinner they served on the top deck was extraordinary and full of amazing chicken, beef, kangaroo (I did not indulge in that), seafood, and more!

The Staff

There was a GREAT staff on board. Each person was so knowledgeable in their particular niche and having them all together made sure every area was covered in depth.
Takuma was so knowledgeable about small things. He seriously pointed at things I couldn’t even see… like baby clams swimming… I also just found our he is a master reef guide and there are only 27 of them in Cairns
James was great to hang around and he was also from Georgia so he had a lot to share about how he came to be where he was. 
Lorenzo was really funny and knew the dive sites really well so he could help you find animals you wanted to see there. 
Mosse (I am not quite sure how to spell his name) would give “talks” on reefs and animals that seemed boring to me at first but were actually really interesting and he had a very smooth voice. 

Unfortunately, since COVID-19 has hit, spirit of freedom has taken a break and a lot (if not all) of these staff members have left their position and have since dispersed globally. 

Boat tour!

While stationed at Lizard Island I was able to get some (shaky but cool) footage of the boat in action. I am also including a photo of the engine room and dive deck. We did use the tinder on the top deck to dive a few times when diving on Bougainville because of the strong currents. They took us to a spot where we could just drift and surface by the boat which made the while operation stress free.

The Diving

Again… easily some of the best diving I will do in my life. I saw so many beautiful corals and unique fish that I would be surprised to ever see again. I am going to drop some photos and videos below and let those do the talking :)
Here is some of my favorite things I saw that I had never seen before: 
- sea snake: I saw it sleeping and swimming 
- mandarin fish: YES these are not supposed to be living here but somehow one made it out into the coral sea and is now living in some coral. I really do not know how they found this thing. National Geographic makes them look clownfish size but let me tell you they are so timid and the size of your pinky fingernail. It took my mom FOREVER to see it and it was right in front of her. Really awesome find though! I think Takuma spotted it but it was not the first time they have seen it there. 
Flashlight fish: on a night dive we went into a cave and we turned our lights off and then the flashlight fish begin to light up and they blink all on the ceiling. It was really beautiful. 
Baby Octopus: this is a sad story. I had surfaced from a night dive where lots of travelli fish swarmed the boat. A baby octopus came off of my wetsuit and dropped onto the boat deck. I picked it up so nobody would step on it and for some reason I forgot that it can survive out of water so I let everyone look and hurried to throw it back. As soon as it hit the water a fish gulped it up and I felt like an idiot. It was cute though…
A new type of diving: 
speaking of these night dives, the staff convinced us to dive with our lights off. I don’t enjoy night dives because I don’t enjoy the dark and now they want my might off??? no. But I was quickly persuaded and off went my light. Your eyes quickly adjust to the light and they were right you do get a much different, more rewarding perspective of the reef with your light off so I would actually highly recommend. 
But what else? 
There were some things I never saw on the boat that I did see at Lady Eliot but there were things I saw on the boat that I did not see at Lady Eliot… so if you’re thinking to just do one or the other, PLEASE think again and try to do both eventually 
On the boat I never saw: 
- a manta ray (also was not manta or whale season) but some other people saw one 
- a guitar shark/ shovel nose ray 
- really didn’t see many rays at all 
- a leopard shark (I still have never seen one to date but my mom saw one at Lady Eliot) 

I also want to talk a little bit about WHERE we doves not just what we saw: 
we dove the coral sea including the ribbon reefs and osprey reef. Then we got EXTREMELY lucky with conditions (which were immaculate) and we were able to make it out to Holmes and Bougainville reefs which had the most pristine drift dives EVER. Seriously ever. 

Below are some videos from Osprey reef where we did the shark dive: 

The next few videos are from the Holmes and Bougainville reefs!

All the videos were shot by me except for this last one and the one before that Lorenzo is holding the camera. 

Lizard Island 

I’ll save all the photos for the blog post on its own. I only went here because of Spirit of Freedom took us for New Year’s Day. We did a hike and had breakfast and left. 

Click here to read more about Lizard Island