Whitsundays

Diving here is usually bolted onto a boat trip rather than sold on its own. Many people arrive on a two- or three-day sailing itinerary and dive from the yacht between anchorages, kitting up on deck for one or two guided dives a day. The alternative is a dedicated charter out of Airlie Beach: an early start, a long transit each way, and a full day afloat before you are back on the dock. Neither format gives you the four-dive rhythm of a purpose-built dive destination.

These are drowned continental peaks rather than coral cays, and that shows underwater. Close in, the reef runs off the rock as an apron of bommies, soft coral and boulder rubble grading onto sand, and the water clears or dirties with the tide and the wind rather than holding steady. Out on the barrier it is a different coast: oceanic water, hard coral in continuous plates and columns, and gutters between the bommies you can swim through. Neither side runs deep — around 30 m is the practical floor.

Pontoon operations exist because most groups are mixed. A moored platform gives a stable base, gear set up under cover, and room to run a guided dive, an introductory dive and a long snorkel in the same session when only half the party is certified. Overnight versions leave you out there after the day boats have gone, and the night dive — off the pontoon or off a moored yacht — is the one people tend to remember, with the polyps open and the daytime fish sitting still under a torch.

It suits new divers, families and anyone travelling with non-divers. Photographers do well on the sheltered inshore bays, where slow, shallow passes over the bommies favour macro over wide angle. Divers after wrecks or a dependable big-animal encounter will find the region thin, and what gets sold as wall diving is reef edge rather than deep drop-off. What the Whitsundays do properly is warm, easy, heavily serviced reef diving with a sailing holiday wrapped around it.