Best Great Barrier Reef Diving Locations .

The Great Barrier Reef is synonymous with fantastic dive locations—it is pretty much one very large, perfect dive location. Wherever you stay, they will be able to recommend some great local spots and a tour to take you there, but if you have to choose, then these locations rank high.

• Lady Elliot Island: Gorgeous coral lagoons, perfect for snorkeling, line this coral cay island off the town of Bundaberg. Boats take you farther out to snorkel above manta rays, plate coral, and a variety of big fish. Divers can swim through the blowhole, 16 meters down, and see gorgonian fans, soft and hard corals, sharks, barracudas, and plenty of colorful reef fish.
• Heron Island: Scuba diving inventor and explorer extraordinaire Jacques Cousteau himself rated Heron island as one of his favorite dive spots on the globe. There are some 22 dive sites dotted around the island, including sites such as the Coral Cascades, featuring coral trout and anemones; the Blue Pools, favored by octopus, turtles, and sharks; Heron Bommie, with its rays, eels, and Spanish dancers; and so many more that you can stay under water for weeks and still not see it all. It’s magical.

A diver explores a coral tunnel in the Great Barrier Reef. Photo © strangerview/123rf.

• Yongala Wreck: Acknowledged as the best wreck dive in Australia, the SS Yongala was sunk by a cyclone in 1911 and is now home to schools of trevally, kingfish, barracuda, and batfish, with giant Queensland grouper, lionfish, turtles, and plenty of hard and soft corals having settled here to the delight of the dive groups visiting the site.
• Green Island: If you like the idea of seeing what’s underwater—after all, that is what the Great Barrier Reef is all about—but can’t quite come to grips with the scuba diving, why not don a helmet, breathe normally, and “walk” down to the sea floor to get to know some rather friendly parrot fish? No experience needed, you barely get your hair wet, yet you can get an idea of what it’s like under water.
• Cod Hole: One of Lizard Island’s favorite dive sites, this is the home of a gigantic and quite friendly potato cod. You are even allowed to hand feed him. But that is not all: Nearby there are giant clams over 150 years old sitting among a stunning variety of dozens of species of coral in the so-called Clam Garden.

Excerpted from the First Edition of Moon Sydney & the Great Barrier Reef.