“MV Coral Seatel” (Now “Big Cat Reality”) was built in 1973 for a guy called Bernie Smith. She was built by “NQEA” North Queensland Engineers and Agents in their Cairns ship yard. She spent the first part of her life as a Mother Ship to game fishing vessels operating out of Cairns to areas around Lizard Island. The “MV Coral Seatel” was a fine vessel and a well run operation with famous guests like Lee Marvin amongst the list of celebrities that loved her.
In the early 80’s the Wallace family bought her and put her on the Cairns – Green Island run as a day passenger ferry with a capacity of 232 persons. Again she was a much loved vessel with her new name “Big Cat Green Island”. A real local icon conducting daily trips to Green Island and becoming the nightly party boat taking many locals and backpackers for cruises up and down Trinity inlet.
Reality Cruises purchased “Big Cat Green Island” in 2000 and after a lot of modifications and refit, “Big Cat Reality” began operating as a Liveaboard Charter Vessel from 2001 out of Brisbane and Bundaberg Marinas. For 15 years “Big Cat Reality” was used for a variety of commercial activities such as scuba diving charters, marine training in the private and public sectors, surveying coastlines, setting up desalination plants, river and bay cruises to name a few. In 2015 Reality Cruises decided to concentrate more on their fishing charters. “Big Cat Reality” became the official “mothership” to 7 tenders for the “fishing adventures of a lifetime!” and continues to operate exploring the Coral Sea. During the last 20 years “Big Cat Reality” has been “slipped” every 2 years religiously and is very well maintained.
Over the years “Big Cat Reality” has taken many film crews out to sea. In 2018-2019 an eight part documentary called “Big Fish Big Adventure” was filmed by Dave from Fraudulent Films on “Big Cat Reality” outlining it’s operations throughout the year – including a “slipping” projects! It was condensed to a movie length show and debuted in Brisbane cinemas following many showings around Australia. It then went to air on Amazon Prime and is now seen all over the world. It is a fantastic reference to see how the charters are conducted on “Big Cat Reality”.
