Visit Date: June 2012

SIlverswift is a fast dive board operating from Cairns, while its sister vessel, the SIlverSonic offers day trips from nearby Port Douglas. We dived twice on Silverswift and had a great experience. (We really wanted to go with Silvesonic the second time but they were fully booked.)

The daily trip offers 3 dives at 3 different sites, though usually at the same reef. We ended up both times at Norman reef and had only 4 different dive sites. The dives are guided, though you can go on your own if you wanted. There were two dive masters for the certified divers and especially the second trip I was worried that there will be a large group diving together as there were a lot of divers on board. It did not happen. I had 6 divers, including the dive master, on the first dive, 4 on the second and only 3 on the third. On the first trip there were even fewer divers.

Even when the boat is full they organize, divers, introductory divers and snorkelers in groups and the dive deck never seemed overcrowded. The whole operation is quite relaxed and after the dive there is an option to go out to snorkel for another 20 min or so. The sea was a bit choppy on our first trip and I did not feel like snorkeling, but on the second trip that was a great option.

The boat offers a lycra suit against stringers and a 5mm shortie wetsuit. We were diving in June so we did not need the lycra but the 5mm shortie was not enough. I combined it with my own 0.5mm skin and that was sufficient.

The wetsuits are not particularly new but the rest of the equipment was OK.

The whole operation appeared to be well organized and well run.