The Coral Sea Reefs present an amazing display of massive gorgonians, sea whips, and bright yellow soft corals. Sharks and schooling pelagics are ever present while innumerous nudibranch, anemones, unusual tropical fish, invertebrates, and huge schools of fish are all to be found. Here some of the largest and most spectacularly coloured soft corals in the world can be found. It is a large reef system that includes Shark Reef to the south and popular dive site North Horn, renown for shark activity. Grey Whalers, White Tip Reefies, Silvertip Whalers, seasonal Hammerheads, schools of Barracuda and Dog Tooth Tuna all abound here.
Flashlight fish make for spectacular night diving.
Holmes Reef - Holmes Reef lies 220 km or 120 nautical miles to the east of Cairns. It is split into two halves, East and West Holmes and has two small sand cays that pierce the surface on low tide. Below steep slopes and vertical walls rise from 1500 metres and caves, tunnels and caverns are dotted around shallow sheltered lagoons. Here you can drift dive at such aptly named sites as The Abyss . Enormous Gorgonians lace the walls and turtles, manta rays, schooling pelagics, sharks and even the occasional whale shark are sighted here.