The Whitsundays

Posted in Airlie Beach and was very ill :(
Sorry this post is not going to be long, i have caught a cold from my trip to the whitsundays and I have no tissues here to blow the beak. I had a brilliant time, ill update you more from rainbow beach.

Speak soon :)

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Currently im in Rainbow Beach :) in the internet cafe attached to the dingos backpackers hostel, but back to the Whitsundays!

Right friday 11th, checked out of Koalas, and went and stored my bags at PeterPan, they held my bags for 3 days while I went on the whitsunday sailings trip. Went back to Koalas and sat round the pool with paul and hannah for abit, just wainting around for my bus that was picking me up at 13:30.

Got picked up, got and the bus, and as per usual, there is always thsi "quiet before the storm" so to speak, nobody knows each other, its abit quiet and before you know it everyone knows everyone and there is never silence. On route to the harbour, the only things i think we could all hear was this canadian lad at the back, really loud....typical canadian I thought (would later find out he's was a quality lad and the loudness was just him, seabas good lad) we all got off the bus and went to the rendevous pointn where Tony "met and greeted" us, bought some last minute supplies from the shop (already had the goon with me :) but we had to take it out of the box's so that they would fit in the eskeys....no problem!

Made our way down to the 83ft Boomerang Maxi Ocean Racing Yacht (you can find a details description of here + pics at http://www.soxsail.com.au/fleet_details.php?vessel_id=2 ) the first pics you see on that site is how we had the boat the first day, we got the sails up with 8 of us on the grinders (these raise the main sail, they are geared...thank god, towards the top it gets really hard to move suck a large canvas?? not sure what it made of), all sittin on the high side of the boat as we cut through the ocean....quality!!! Sat talked with several people on top deck (James, Alister, Brad, Marie and Rosani) before we got on the boat we had to put our shoes in a big bag....no shoes for us. We had an intro off the crew, the skipper was James/Jimmy/Jim/Skip/Cap he didnt maide any of them, he had been sailing since he was 8, Tony he was Decky training to be a Skipper, he had about another 8months of training left, Digger he was also a Decky but also the Chef and they had one volunteer Rasmus (I actually met Rasmus on Magnetic Island 2 weeks age, and he was volunteering cus he had no cash to pay for the trip).

Took about 2 to 3 hours to reach the Whitsunday Islands as the wind had dropped considerably compared to when we set off, we achored off in Chavce Bay, just round the corner from Whitehaven beach, by this time is was dark, we watched the sun disapear over Hamilton Island, we had dinner (Steak, Mash and gravey) and we all got up on top deck with the beers and goon out, you know I was sayin you can really see the stars clearly on this side of the world, well out at sea its unbelievable...you could see Mars and Venus really clearly along with every other stars that could possibly be out there! Later that evening about 12 wen most poeple had gone to bed we dragged out beds from below deck onto top so that we could sleep comfortably under the stars....it was allittle chilly to start but I got wrapped up in my sheet and I was fine :) was ace waking up with the sun rising, undescribeable! everyone was woken up early around 5:30, we all had some breakfast and tea, hauled the anchor up and we motored round to Whitehaven Beach which is on Whitsunday Island, the beach is 7 k/m long and is 75% pure silica (this basically means its nearly the purest sand you can find, its makes a funny squeeching sound wen you tread on it) we mored up and 14 of us jumped in the dingy boat to be taken to the beach, we arrived at 7:10AM (The earliest ever drop to Whithaven that the boomerang crew had done to date) put my gear down and played football and frisby with some of the people, after about 10mins I was bord of reisby so I decided t catch Brad up who had wondered up the beach towards the south end, however he dissapeared out of sight before I got to were he was, came across some funny sea creatures washed up on the beach, Brad then re-appeared from this walkway. As we walked down the beach allitle futher we came across this black cloud in the sea, it was massive school of fish clumped together, we saw a turtle abit futher out and when we reach the end of the beach we could sea thousands of other fish in the sea around these rocks that we had climbed. By know the sun had come out and it was gettin far too hot, we made our way back to the others, passing other people from the boomerang also exploring the beach. Too be honest I was ready to leave the beach then, cus it was sooooo hot, but they didnt pick us up for another 30 mins, because they said we had 2 hours there, they made sure we did :)

When we all got back on board we motored round Tounge Bay-Hill again we got dropped off the same as before, Tounge Bay-Hill is was about a 15 min trek up the hill to a lookout point over Whithaven Beach....now no word of a lie, from beach level it looked like paradise, from up here it looked like double paradise, the whitest sands, the bluest of blue waters, with foot step marks trailing across parts of the sands, it looked better the postcard without a doubt. Made our way back to the pick up point, where Tony Picked us up and took us back to the Boomerang, once we were all aboard Jimmy took us over to Border Island were we anchored off in Pitstop Bay to do some snorkeling. We all got out Stingersuits on as its the season for Jelly Fish. The reef we were swimming around is called fringing reef, this reef only grows around islands for this reason its is different to the Great Barrier Reef, as this is free standing Coral so to speak. It was amazing, so many fish and different types of Coral, me and Seabass buddied up and went exploring different parts of the reef, we found a giant clam probably about 500 years old, when Seabass touched it it snapped shut, we also found a tunnel of coral to swim through, however Seabass went through and caught his foot on some sharp reef, so I decided to give it a miss, as cuts from the coral can become easily infected ( some people came back to the boat with awfull gashes on there plates) Went back to the boat and removed the Stinger suit so I could do some diving off the side of the boat, was wicked, Alister got a mint photo of me, just before I entered the water, you can see a clear reflection of me in the water, well done son.

We then motored just round to Cataran Bay, still on Border Island, were we went snorkelling again, lots of baby clams here, the current was really strong and after swimming out and arounf the reef, i decided to swim back to the boat....christ I wished I hadnt, nearly killed me, not leterally it was just really hard work, just as I was getting to the ladder to climb back aboard I saw a tiny jellyfish (cud have been an incurda not sure) but I dont even think I used the ladder, i lept onto the boat!!! and that was the end of my sea activities, wasnt takin any chances.

Me and Alister had been taking a steady pace on the beers all afternoon, after the snorkelling we went round to Macona Inlet off Hook Island were we all proceeded to get smasharoonied, was playin this daft drinkin game called shoulder, that got harder the more we played. Tony and Digger asked for alcaholic Donations and they made a punch, that tasted well dreadfull, but lethal :) Jimmy then came up and announced that the bar on Hook Island had said that we go ashore for some drinks and pool, there was a big cheer and that sealed the deal, we piled into the dingy with the punch and polished it off on the way to the island. On Hook Island I went to the bar and order a southern comfort (Flemmans comin out in me) and lemonade (mite I add it was free pour and the guy didnt hold back, I nearly asked him if there was any lemonade with that southern comfort) Got that one down me and Margi a Canadian girl, wanted one so I went a got 2 more, after that one I felt the need to lie down, so i stumbled towards the sun loungers on the beach were I proceeded to pass out/fall asleep im not sure to be honest, but I woke up and all I cud see was the dingy leavin Hook Island, I ran to the waters edge waving my hat tryin to gettin some attention (later I would find out that they thought I was a drunk local waving goodbye!!!) they didnt come back for me, I went to the bar were they tried radio'ing the Boomerang telling them they had left someone behind....no answer...typical I thought!!! I waited on the beach, I couldnt even see the Boomerang it was that far away, waited for about 45mins and I got a tap on the shoulder from these 2 local guys, they told me they would take me back as it didnt look like they were comin back and that the tide was goin out and soon it would be immposible to leave the island, I helped them drag a dingy down the beach and we set off, when I arrived back at the boats edge people could see it was me and they found it quite ammusing, as most of them thought I was in bed :) had a good laugh with a few people about the whole ordeal, by this time the p!ssed feeling had acome back, so I made a beline for a bed below deck, were i comfortably slept until the early hours wehn I stumbled to the fridge for a bottle of water.

Woke up the next day with a really sore head, and a snivverly nose (you know that feeling you get when your comin down with a cold sneezing and blowing my nose the whole journey back) got some tea and breaky down me, not that it helped, the mornin sun was up and toastin us, there was not one drop of wind in the air, so we had to motor back to Airlie Beach, doin about 3-4 nots so slow, especially in the sun, with no shade on the boat, just gettin baked to death, sweatin my ass off!! We finally got back about 11AM we had a chat off the crew and we gave them 3 cheers for puttin up with us.

We handed our stinger suits back in to a guy on the dockside, got our deposits and shoes back and made our way back to were the bus was to pick us up. Me and Alister picked up a Bacon and egg batch from the Shop....not to forget a peach ice tea. Got on the bus and got dropped off outside Koalas. Went and brought some new sunnies as I trod on my new pair on the boat...great my third pair, also brought a box of tissues.

Collected my bag from PeterPan and made my way to the Lagoon were I knew some of the people from the trip were waiting for the buses that would be comin later in the day, I dropped my stuff with them and went for a shower etc at the lagoon showers....first shower in 3days, so good except you had the whole lagoon watching you shower :) Went back and drided off got chattin to this German girl who was sat next to me. I then spent the afternoon goin back and forth to the pharmacey, gettin anti cold drugs etc....seabass had his photos developed from his underwater camera and he got me 1 done for 5 bucks.

Back at the lagoon I fell asleep for about an hour on my rucksack....so comfy :) bout 6:15PM made my way to the bus station as I was catching the next greyhound at 6:30...en route I bumped into Rasmus, he was gettin the same bus but he was stayin on it to Brisbane (mad man it was 16 hours to Rainbow Beach and somet like another 10 to Brisbane) Bus was late!!! but we all got on fairly fast and what a nightmare of a journey I had, hardly got any sleep, was hot, sneezing and up against the window...hated every minute of bein on that bus. We changed buses at Hervey Bay where I made a couple of quick phone calls, it was then 2 hours on to Rainbow. arrived at Rainbow about 10:30AM checked in, bumped into Ben and Darryl, but they were off to Fraser rite then, I went striaght to my room and crawled into bed feelin roten. got up