The Gold Coast

The Gold Coast lies in Queensland, Australia, close to the border with New South Wales. It is a large city, with countless places to stay, eat and go out. You can get here easily via Brisbane, since many international airlines fly directly to Brisbane and there is a direct airportlink connection with the Gold Coast. Local airlines also fly directly to Coolangatta airport. The Gold Coast has many attraction parks, such as Sea World, Wet and Wild and Warner Brothers Movie world. If you do not mind a lot of tourists and have a fair bit of money to spend, you will definitely not be bored here. Since there are so many tourists around, the locals tend to get a little nationalistic sometimes, which is something to keep in mind.

Surfers Paradise

The Gold Coast is world-famous for its surfers’ culture and beaches. The best known spot is of course Surfers Paradise. There are surfers and surf shops everywhere. Although it is not really a destination for divers, there are some good dive sites around. It is just more common to dive in the Great Barrier Reef when you are visiting Queensland. Because of this, you can dive in small groups and get out of the rush of the city.

Aqua Sports and Dive

We went for a dive with Aqua Sports and Dive / Buddyline Dive Tours, a local dive school that offers to pick you up at your accommodation and organizes a BBQ after the dives. You are brought to their shop first, to try on the gear (which is very good, by the way) and then to Tweeds Head, where they have a small dive boat. It is quite comfortable though, and the crew definitely knows what they are doing.

Pelicans watch you while you set up your gear. The boat trip to Cook Island takes only a little over half an hour, but the seas can be very rough. Depending on the direction from which the wind is blowing, a dive site is chosen. Once the boat is moored on the right spot, the seas are much calmer.

Diving conditions

We went diving here in October 2004, when the waters are 21 degrees. The water temperature varies only a little over the seasons and will never get really cold nor comfortably warm. The visibility is generally between 5 and 10 metres. Although not as famous as the dive sites in the Great Barrier Reef, Cook Island has its own special character and is spectacular in its own way.

Marine Life

The first dive site was called Turtle Cove. It was about 15 metres deep. You could go much deeper, but all there is beyond this depth is a sand bottom, without much marine life to see. Navigation is relatively straightforward, so you can dive without a guide. Marine life that you can find here is: Moorish idols, wobbegong sharks, stonefish, eagle rays, blue spotted lagoon rays and black damsels.

The second dive site was called Coral Gardens and this was very similar to the site described above, only a little shallower, about 10 metres deep. This gives you the opportunity to stay under water extra long and count the turtles and wobbegong sharks that you can spot here in large quantities and various shapes and sizes.

The largest wobbegong shark we saw on the day was more than 2 metres long! Although there are a very placid species of shark, you should absolutely not touch them, because they will eventually bite. You’ll find green turtles, loggerhead turtles, large eagle rays, speckled moray eels, clownfish and cuttlefish here.