North Stradbroke Island is a sand island popular with campers and day-trippers from Brisbane. It's full of classic Australian wildlife and big sandy beaches. I spent 3-4 hours on buses, trains and a ferry to get there from Brisbane. There's a dive lodge/charter business (Manta Lodge) near Lighthouse Point at the North-East tip of the island. I stayed there for a night and then went for 2 dives the next morning. They launch their RHIB dive boats with tractors right off the sandy beach in front of the dive center. This was on July 27, 2019. This is Winter in Australia. Air temperatures were in the mid-to-low 20's and the water temp. was about 22 degrees. I wore a 5mm wetsuit and a hood.
