Nautilus is a 15m long dive boat that runs day trips to the best dive sites in the Moreton Bay Marine Park each weekend and midweek with enough bookings. The boat is very stable and fast, crossing Moreton Bay at a cruising speed of 18knots, with a top speed of 25knots. Owned and operated by Nautilus Scuba Centre at Toowong, the owners Jim and Lisa Edwards purchased the former Cairns based dive boat in August 2005 and have been running trips around Moreton Bay since September 2005.
The boat is very comfo
rtable
with a large lounge area, a toilet, an outdoor shower, a fly bridge and a huge
diving deck 
with
easy access in and out of the water via two ladders. Since they purchased
Nautilus, Jim and Lisa have painted and refitted the boat – putting in tank
racks and a hire gear storeroom. In the next few months Jim is also planning to
install a television, video and DVD in the lounge room, air conditioning and a
compressor, so tanks can be filled onboard.Nautilus is surveyed for 40 divers, however to make trips more comfortable they take a maximum of 25 divers, including a crew of around seven.
A day out on Nautilus is a very enjoyable experience. Based at Scarborough, a forty minute drive north of Brisbane at Newport Waterways, the boat departs at 8am and returns around 4pm.
I recently joined Nautilus for a day of fantastic diving at Flinders Reef. After boarding the vessel and stowing our dive gear, we were given a safety briefing on the boat as she cut across Moreton Bay. It took just over an hour and half to reach Flinders Reef, which is fully protected as a marine sanctuary.
Our first dive was at the Coral Gardens. The visibility was easily 20m and in the clear water we encountered green turtles a
nd
numerous tropical fish species as we explored the beautiful gardens of hard and
soft coral in 8 to 15m of water. There are lots of ledges and gutters to explore
where crayfish and slipper crays hide. Invertebrate species were well
represented with feather stars, sea stars, brittle stars, clams, shrimps, crabs
and nudibranchs on show. We also found several wobbegong sharks, while other
divers encountered stingrays and a leopard shark. Between dives you can snorkel, sunbake, turtle watch, whale watch or have a sleep in the large lounge room. A very filling lunch was provided before we geared up for another dive.
For the second dive we moved to another part of Flinders Reef. Here we explored coral canyons in 18m of water. Under ledges we spotted crayfish, sweetlip, squirrelfish, tuskfish and even a pineapplefish. The coral species were again spectacular and prolific, plus there was an amazing variety of reef fish to be seen.
Once back on Nautilus the dive gear was washed and stowed away, then we had a leisurely trip back across Moreton Bay.