Cyclones, rain & sea

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We arrive into Airlie beach and get picked up by our hostel Bush Village and are put into a really cool double room in a bungalow with a shared kitchen and bathroom and one other room. Luckily no one was out in the other room, so we managed to spread out and relax. We popped into town to pay our reef tax at the office and pick up our terms and conditions form. Liam popped out to grab some dinner , then we set about packing what we thought we would need for the trip. A couple of day’s worth of clothes and swim wear.

Up early washed and checked out, bags stored and a lift down to the marina, we hang around and meet everyone else on the trip before the stinger suit people come along. We both grab full wetsuits, with hoods or full body condoms as we like to call them. Not long after Nicole, the cook, comes to collect us and we head down to the boat. We were sailing on the Avatar with Ozsail.

We jump on board and meet Wozza the Skipper and Harry (yes Harry is on the boat!) the deck hand. So we have 27 on board including the crew! As we head out to sea we are given our room allocations, they are all double beds, so a lot of single people are buddied up. We are put in the best room at the back of the boat. It is a double with two singles either side. It is where all of the bags are stored in the middle of the back end of the boat, so it is really stable. Also it has two port holes which we later find is a real blessing.

We head back up to the Tramp’s (two trampolines, one at either side of the boat), ideal for sunbathing., but no good if you are sitting there when you are sailing as you tend to get a little wet! Well talk about getting wet, we were not far out to sea and the clouds started gathering! It came down little by little! We were ok at first, enjoying a break from the intense sunshine! Then it started getting a bit heaver, so we went and got our rain coats. Soon we were bouncing all over the sea. It took ages and a lot of skill by Wozza to get to where we were staying for the night. Unfortunately it was so rough that even Harry was up chucking his breakfast of chilli! Along with a couple of hung over passengers that had a few too many last night!

When we arrived we were supposed to go off snorkelling, but the water was to murky from the rain and the current was too strong. The boy’s spent hours jumping off of the boat in an array of different styles before letting the current pull them back to the ladder. Charlotte braved to water also! She jumped into her stinger suit and floated around at the rear of the boat hanging onto a rope which was being stretched to its limits in the strong current.

We had a lovely supper that night and got out the boxes of goon early as the campers headed off to the island resort for the night! As the rain came in and the winds picked up we all started gathering inside. Not much room and very warm with so many body’s in an enclosed space. Unfortunately with all of the rain and the sand painted surfaces Charlottes leggings sort of dissolved! First there was a hole in the bottom area, which grew, then it was followed by a hole in the front right leg. Followed by the girl under my leg in the photo, ripping the front of the ripped leg off nad wearing it as a wrist band for the night. Much music fun and dancing ensued until the early hours of the morning.

We retired with our fellow cabin mates to bed and had a good nights sleep. It was not until the sun came up our little cabin got warm, at which point we opened all of the windows and slept on! The sun was up, yeah! We missed breakfast and watched the others go off for a morning walk up to a waterfall, we were happy sunning ourself! We found out that not all had the good night that we did. The couples in the outer floats did not get much sleep as the rise and fall of the boat, slapped the float down hard on the water. Also they could not have the hatch closed because it was too hot. Although a tarp had been rigged up to stop the rain, it did not because of the wind. So They got a bit wet! The guys in the main cabin were too hot and as the crew were up all night keeping us afloat it was quite noisey. Harry saw our tender getting filled up with water, but buy the time he had gone and told the skipper the bloddy thing had sunk! They had to get it back up, dry off the engine and then keep it afloat for the rest of the night. I think the crew got about two hours sleep between them that night.

After lunch as the weather was too bad to go around to White haven beach we headed off for a bit of snorkelling. It was nice to be in the water, even if we had to were the stinger suits. Harry did a great job of ferrying us back and forth. The equipotent was pretty old and a bit knackered, there were not enough flippers to go around, but it was fun nome the less. The rain had washed down a lot of sand, so it took a good 20-30 mins of hunting to find any coral! As for fish, there were not any brightly coloured ones, they were all pretty insipid. It was nice to be in the water and I am sure I saw what looked like a baby shark. We even started to get a bit cold floating around out there!

Back on the boat and back to the place we stopped last night. Wozza was telling us that we had to brace ourselves for another tough night as the tail end of Cyclone Olga was coming around again! He arranged for up to 16 of us to spend the night on the island in dorms with the campers. After dinner though it was a lovely evening and although we could see the storm brewing and carrying on back at Airlie beach. We volunteered to stay the night on the boat as our beds were dry & we were fine in our cabin. A few went over to stay at the resort and a few went over for drinks. We stayed put and chatted all night with Wozza.

Harry and Nicole returned at 10pm with the others that were staying on the boat that night then off to bed and Nicole and Harry joined us in our cabin as the two other girls had gone over to the resort. Up early for some breakfast and the ride back to port. As we came in we could see the devastation that the storm of the previous night had caused. There were boats with no mast and masts with no boat. Also a couple had been blown free of there moarings and washed up on the beach.

After three days of not washing properly and only having limited clothes it was nice to see a friendly face when Jim picked us up and brought us back to Bush Village. We chucked ourselves in the shower and put on clean clothes, yeah!

Tonight we have an after party at Beaches, so after scrubbing up we get the shuttle bus to town and grab a burger to line our stomachs before heading down to our reserved table. Everyone except Wozza turns up and we have a few beers as we pass around a serviette with our e-mail addresses on, so we can all keep in contact! We head off back before it gets a too messy and grab the last shuttle home. We bet there are a few sore heads tomorrow.

Three days chilling, shopping for new leggings and more chilling and soon we were back off to catch the Northbound Greyhound to our next destination.

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