Community
18 December, 2024
It’s just for snorkelling
FOR those visitors looking for a half-day adventure, the new Pure Snorkelling locally-built $1.5 million reef vessel promises just that, covering 30 moorings, offering exclusively snorkelling and having clients back in town just in time for dinner.
In a joint venture between two of Cairns’ most renowned reef operators, Passions of Paradise Alan Wallish, Ocean Free’s Perry Jones and Ocean Freedom’s Taryn Agius, have officially launched Pure Snorkelling. It is a new brand focusing on a market looking for a shorter stint on the Great Barrier Reef.
With the new brand they have introduced the completely locally-built 40-seat, 12m Pure Snorkelling boat, which started taking its first trips to the Reef this week. The boat leaves the marina from 12.30pm and returns at 5.30pm.
“We’re both Cairns families who have been here for almost 40 years and we wanted to create a new baby for the marina and the reef industry,” Mr Wallish said.
“We’ve gone for a completely different concept, a half day operation. This boat gets you out to the (Great Barrier) Reef quickly, gets you to the same top-quality reefs, gives you a couple of hours on the Reef – which is plenty for everybody to see it and experience it – and then we get you back.
“That means you can go to Skyrail in the morning and come out to the Reef in the afternoon, or you can have a lazy morning, have a nice, long breakfast, do some shopping and go out to the Reef and still see the same things that everybody else does.”
The vessel was built in Cairns by BME Fabrications at Portsmith and fitted out by Cairns businesses, including Cairns Coastal Coverings and Portside Blast and Paint. It has four 350 horsepower B10 Mercury engines, two toilets, a freshwater shower, three exit areas and a platform that lowers into the water for extra comfort of the passengers. “It’s great that we have built something in Cairns for Cairns, by Cairns to go to Cairns reefs,” Mr Wallish said.
“We’ve invested $1.5m and we also have a pontoon office that we’re building – that will be another million dollars – that’ll be finished in five weeks.”
Tourism Tropical North Queensland’s chief executive Mark Olsen said the boat would give another extra boost to the industry for the post-Covid recovery. “This is a local idea, local investors and a locally-constructed, beautiful vessel that opens up two really great new markets,” he said.
“You’ve got consumers that aren’t really sure they want to spend a whole day on the Great Barrier Reef markets like India, markets coming back from the east, this is perfect for that customer.”
