Airlie Beach and Whitsundays

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Airlie Beach
Tuesday 12th of January we arrived in Airlie beach, we stayed at beachs hostel for 2 nights, spent 2nights on the whitsunday cruise and spent another 2nights in airlie beach. I loved Airlie beach, it had a good atmosphere! It wasnt very big, but it had the essentials, a HUGE lagoon, newsagent, hostels, bars, and mama africas (night club).The lagoon was so big and clean, and the sea was just beside the lagoon, i loved it there! We met loads of people here before and while on the cruise!

Whitsundays cruise
On the Thursday we went to meet the famous atlantic clipper sailing boat, everyone who I spoke to said we should go on this boat, its a two night and three day trip. It was brilliant!!! Out of the 74 islands, we saw two islands and a lot of drink haha! The first night everyone got to know each other and had a good laugh, the boat held 50 people, they were from all over the world Swizz, Norwegian, Holland, German, Brazil, Irish and English! The next morning I woke up, wasn’t feeling great, took a travel sickness tablet and held on until we reached steady ground, which was lucky early in the morning . Our first stop was white haven beach, this place was amazing! The sand was snow white and had an ingredient in it so you can clean all your jewellery in the sand. The sand is so fine it gets right into your camera so i didn’t take pictures while on the beach, but i have some from a view point. Unfortunately you couldn’t run, skip, jump and dive into the sea cause of the sting rays would get you! Once we put our sting suits (wet suits) on we went into the water and saw sting ray and small reef sharks swimming around your feet, it was brilliant!

We went back to the boat for lunch (the food was surprisingly really good!) and then we went scubadiving!!!!! Oh i love it!!! It was a bit different from Thialand, in Thailand we jumped into the sea from the back of a boat, this time we walkin into the sea from the beach, i thought this would be harder but its not, it was fine! I loved it, it was such a great experience. Ste did great aswell, we enjoyed it so much, we went scubadiving again at 9.00am the next morning. This time we had to do a back flip of the speed boat and into the water, this i was not ok with!!! SO when the instructor counted down everyone flipped and i sat at the edge saying ill just swing my legs around and dunk myself in (which is near impossible with flippers on and a tank full of gas on your back). He said ok, lifted my legs and flung me backwards!!! Got the fright of my life, i just kept thinking when i was under water “you can breath”. I was glad he did it though cause now i know i can do it. This time we bought food with us, so while swimming we shook the bottle of food and the fish swam all around us. I enjoyed it so much! Cant wait to do it again in Ireland! If I was any better at swimming id consider doing the open water course. We also did snorkling and saw a couple of fish and of course lovely coral considering we were in the great barrier of reef.
The second night and day it lashed rain, it was a pity, but after a few drinks everyone was in good spirits and we played a few games with the crew, like simon says be a dead fish, so everyone flops around on the ground and simon said alot of other funny things!! This was a great night, we played drinkin card games, had a sing song and a dance. My highlight of the boat trip was about 11.00pm that night i looked over the side of the boat, the light had attracted lots of little fish an these had attracted sharks, so we watched the sharks eat there dinner, there must of been 9 or 10 of them, and then as if that wasn’t surreal enough, dolphins came and joined them all. It was amzing watching the dolphins and sharks along the side of the boat, I couldn’t believe it, I would of thought it was just the drink making me think it, until everyone one else noticed and came and watched!!We also saw a huge turtle in the water that day! The atlantic clipper was great and really lives up to its name!

Back to Airlie beach, we spent another 2nights in here when we arrived back because we liked it so much. We had our after party in phoenix bar were we got free pizza!! It was a great laugh, everyone from the boat and the crew enjoyed a dance and a few drinks. Me and ste also made it to paddy shenanigans bar and mama Africas nightclub that night!! Time for a detox, the next night we enjoyed card games and skyping with our roomies in the beachs dorm.

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