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Published: August 3rd 2008
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Arriving in Airlie beach at 5.30am after 22 hours on the train, it was still dark and the only thing open in the town was a 24hr Mcdonalds! As we watched the sky brighten as the sun came up behind a nearby hill we got our first glimpse of what was to be the base for our most exciting and prefect adventure yet: Sailing the Whitsundays and diving on the Outer Great Barrier Reef.
Airlie is a real backpacker town - tiny and full of hostels, bars and not much else. With little to do on our budget we spent two days slapping on the factor fifty and stretching out under the cloudless blue skies to work on our tans before joining our boat.
On Wednesday evening we walked round to Able Point marina where we were met by our two dive instructors Andy and Vincent. That evening we got to know the rest of the poeple on board as we motored out to the Whitsundays and dropped anchor for the night.
Pacific Star, our home for the next three days and nights is built as a dive boat so we did not actually do much sailing (the bit
we did was at night). However that did not matter as the things we did do were so amazing.
On our first morning we went ashore onto Whitsunday Island and climbed up to the Hill Inlet lookout which gives fantastic views over the famous Whitehaven Beach. We spent about an hour on the pure white sands of this gorgeous beach before heading back to the boat to go out to Bait Reef. Included in the price of the trip was a free introductionary scuba dive which me and kelly were supposed to do with another girl that afternoon. However the sun got low in the sky and we had to wait for the next day - meaning that we missed out on seeing Bait Reef. That night we set off in a northerly direction towards the Outer Great Barrier Reef. When we woke up from a relaxing night's sleep we were approaching our destination and were soon anchored near a section of reef with not a single other boat to be seen on the horizon around us. We were the first group to go for our dive and once we had got kitted up and been through the skills
we needed to demonstrate on the boat we jumped into the water to practice them again before our descent. Unfortunately (for them anyway) Kelly and Stephanie (Canadian) decided they were not comfortable breathing through a regulator under the water so I went for the dive on my own with the instructor. As it turned out this was a good thing: I did not have quite enough weights on my belt and kept floating up meaning Vincent had to pull me back down again! The dive was absolutely
amazing! The feeling of being under the water is like no other - the freedom of it. The coral is like nothing I've ever seen and the fish were so colourful. As we decended there were even a couple of sharks swimming round the bottom of the anchor chain! I came up from the short dive absolutely in awe and desperate to go again!
I didn't have long to wait. That afternoon a group of four of us went for a second dive, this time with a bit more weight attached to me! As we had already been once we were able to go for longer (about 30 minutes) and deeper (12m).
We swam all round the section of reef we were close too and I found "Nemo" along the way - at least I saw three clown fish peeping out of a red anenome! Again there were sharks and this time we got a lot closer! I did my best to take pictures with the underwater single use camera but I will have to wait and see what they come out like. After this second dive it is safe to say that I am a definite fan of Scuba Diving and am going to look into doing a course once I've got some income back at home! I also joined Kelly and Stephanie for some snorkling between the dives which offered a totally different perspective on the reef and I saw whole schools of different fish to what was in the deeper waters.
After another night of motoring (this time back to the Whitsundays) we and several others got up at 5.30 so we could sit on the deck and watch the sunrise. Unfortunately there was land in the way so we did not see the sun come up but did watch the sky get lighter and the stars fade.
We also witnessed two brilliant sunsets over a clear horizon when the sky went all shades of orange red and pink. The night sky was equally, if not more, impressive as we were in the middle of nowhere the stars were really clear and bright and I saw my first shooting stars! The final day was spent snorkling on a shallow bit of reef near a sand bar. The waters near the islands is more "milky" but we still saw plenty and kelly even saw a Turtle!
The boat was really quite comfortable with proper flushing toilets and (time restricted) showers. The food was amazing thanks to the hostess who cooked up three healthy and satisfying meals a day for us as well as snacks in between. The trip was rounded off by some drinks at a couple of bars in Airlie.
I did not take my digital camera on the boat as i did not want to risk damaging it so there are no pictures from there... yet.
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