Sailing on the Whitsundays

Well after a long long overnight bus journey (the Grayhound coaches over here can be a bit squashed, plus we weren't sat together so I couldn't lean on someone, well at least I don't think a stranger would appreciate me slavering all on them in my sleep anyway!) we finally arrived in Arlie Beach at 11.25am, a good 11 hours later.

The travel agent told us there wasn't much to Arlie Beach but as soon as we hit the main street it was filled with loads of little tack shops, cafe's and a couple of bars - felt quite homely.

As there are loads of Jellyfish here, you can't swim in the sea without a Stinger Suit so the town has a man made lagoon (like in Cairns) where people can go swimming, it's really pretty!

We hit the bottle shop to get our beer (4 litres of good ole Goon) and then was collected by the coach and taken to the harbour ready to board our home for the next few days - the Bomerang boat.

Apparently the boat has won a couple of medals for high speed sailing and it is a pretty impressive boat, but the deck space downstairs was a bit cramped. As me and Di were the last people to book the trip we had to share a double, however the double bed (although it was more like a cubby hole) was about the same size as a large single - nice and cosy for us then!.
There were 28 guests and 3 crew in total, the crew were Shannon (the skippy) Trev (the mad Irish deck hand) and Lisa (who cooked all our meals).

We set sail and it was strange at first as the boat really tipped to one side - with it being a proper siling boat and all! But you soon got used to it and before long it was strange not to walk on a slant!

Our first stop on the Whitsundays was Caves Cove, a sweet little cove on Hook Island. It was our first snorkle of the journey so we all donned our sexy Stinger Suits ready to jump in. As we were waiting, a couple of us saw some reallly large jelly fish swim by - it scared the hell out of me! But apparently the large jelly fish stings are fine and are just like a bee sting, the most dangerous ones are called Irukanji and are about the size of your thumbnail and clear - so really hard to spot until they sting you! As there is no anti-dote, if you do get stung the medics just pump you full of pain killers and let you ride it out which can take hours - nice!
The stinger suits are like wet suits and only cover you main body, so your feet, hands and face are still exposed! Therefore once I got in the water I spent most of the time doggy-paddling as to avoid putting my feet and hands in the water - must have looked sexy as!

When I finally did finally relax enough to look under the water, it was pretty clear and the coral was quite nice. But after about 20 minutes I saw a clear jellyfish swim towards me and just had to get out! Diane though is a true water baby and stayed in for about 40 mins, she won't let a little thing like pain get in the way!

We got back on the boat and then sailed to Nara inlet where we docked and had our evening meal of steak and salad - yummy!
Apparently this area is a breeding ground for sharks and as we were waiting for the food we actually saw an Hammerhead in the water - no skinny dipping tonight then!
It wasn't long afterwards that the ale started flowing and it's funny that when this happens everyone starts to mingle more!

We found out that the passengers consisted of quite a few germans, couple more english, a swedish couple and a group of 4 Isralies who turned out to be really cool and funny! Am always suprised at how well other people speak english and these were no exception.
We even got to learn a bit of hebrew - Savbaba - which means cool!

After a litre of goon we were all quite tired (especially since me and di had not slept in a bit for 36 hours!) so retired to our cabin.
Tomorrow we're off to Whitehaven Beach which is meant to be beautiful - bring it on!

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