Well, it’s that time of year again and just before the summer rush of diving in Koh Tao and expeditions planned for the Asia region, I thought we would get some other diving ingredients into our diet. So off we went to Australia and New Zealand to have a look at what their diving has to offer; our first stop was Cooktown to look at the museum and area which Captain Cook first landed in Australia to affect repairs to his stricken ship. Then onward to Cairnes. As this is the first time I had been here, I was suprised to see how small it was; a point which was pushed home when we bumped into an ex DMT internship candidate and Aussie, Heersham Garroun, taking some time out before finishing his Masters in Marine Biology. We booked up to do a livabord to the outer reef, which was then cancelled due to two cyclones that were closing in on the coast. So our only option was to book a day excursion with one of the larger catamarans; this we did and headed off to a dive site on the outer reef known as the ‘Table Top’. On the way out we had a 3mtr swell coming on our nose forward quarter starbord, making it a little bouncy – even for the 20 mtr catamaran. But after the outward trip, which lasted an hour, we arrived and were impressed with the way the Barrier Reef did its job breaking up the huge swells created by the cyclone; our gain today, which has been the downfall for many ships trying to navagate through to the calmer water behind one of the many sections which make up the outer reef . We  moored up into the lea and jumped into the welcoming 28 degrees of water and were pleasantly suprised by the vis’; which we expected to be low and was up to 15mtr in places. A small blue spotted sting ray and white tip reef shark were also around to welcome us into the underwater world. We dropped down to around 28 mtr and turned the dive when we started to feel the effects of the swell at the edge of that section of the reef. All in all a pleasant experience made more enjoyable by the friendly face of an old irish friend of mine when we hit the surface the dive industry is small sometimes… nextstop New Zealand and the Poor Knights Islands.