Sailing adventure

Well, after magnetic island we got a bus further down the East coast to a place called Airlie beach. We had booked a package which includes 2 nights free accomodation at a hostel, a trip on Fraser island (which we're about to do tomorrow) and a 2 night sailing expedition around the Whitsunday islands!!! Soo our hostel was cool, we upgraded to a private room which was a little hut type thing with it's own little kitchen where I cooked spaghetti for tea ooh exciting!! We're getting a bit sick of eating out all the time. It's lost its novelty and meals are a lot more expensive here than Asia where you could easily get a decent meal for one or two pounds!!! Actually food here generally is pricey...even in supermarkets. Although we haven't been able to get to the big supermarkets as you need a car to get to them and I guess prices are a bit more reasonable there.

Anyway...soo we had a night in our hostel then packed our bags to head off sailing!!! We met our group (a total of 18 of us plus 3 staff), we had two swedish guys, another english girl, three german girls (all around 6 feet tall), a quiet german guy, a nice canadian guy, three lively welsh lads and a few other couples....oh and this guy called Jim who at the age of mid thirties was much older than the rest of us bar one couple. He was a bit odd but really sweet!!!

Soo the first day on the boat was spent sailing. We didnt even get off the thing. And lets say there wasn't enough room for ten people never mind over 20!!! The beds were tiny and all packed in together like hens. Luckily the weather was pleasant. The crew didn't seem to have much of a clue about sailing though and I'm glad the sea was calm otherwise I have no doubt we would have all been overboard pretty quickly! That's what you get for backpacker prices I guess!!! That evening we had spag bol and sat on the deck and got to know our group! I learned how to find South by drawing imaginary lines between various constellations and saw a shooting star which was cool!!!! Sleeping was pretty difficult, partly due to the smelly dive equipment, the smelly toilet in which you could hear every sound every time someone went in and used it, partly because the evening got quite chilly and also the cramped conditions!!!

That evening we had moored up at Whitsunday island home to the famous 6km long Whitehaven beach with pure white sand which is 98% pure silica and literally squeaked as you walked upon it. Apparently only NASA are allowed to remove the sand from it!! Before we relaxed on the beach we walked upto a viewpoint and got some snaps then descended to the beach where we had a few hours free time. As it was morning it was a bit nippy with sea breeze and such like but it was still very nice and good to be able to stretch our legs and get off that boat!!!! As the boat was a diveboat and our trip included a free dive we went to do that in the afternoon. Unfortunately the boat was not really a suitable dive boat and help only enough equipment for four people to dive at a time. Not everybody was diving, so there were four groups. Nick and I were in the third group. The equipment was all pretty shabby and my BCD (kind of life jacket which inflates and deflates and connects to the air tank etc) was gigantic. They only let us dive for 20 minutes which was really disappointing as in Cairns each dive had lasted almost an hour- as long as our air lasted and the dives were really well planned and professional. Another thign that surprised me was they let the English girl lead one of the dive groups on her own. She had completed her divemaster in Ko Tao where we learned to dive but it was a bit strange for a company to do that really. I mean she'd never dived in the area before, wasn't a fully qualified instructor, Hmm bit dodgy. The dive was nice, not as impressive as Cairns but saw some cool colourful fish and really nice coral. The water was a bit murky though which made it difficult to see.

That evening the Welsh lads got some drinking games going! There were a few arm wrestling competetions which one of the Swede guys (who was bloody huge) took rather seriously...to the point where his elbow began to bleed and he just wouldn't give up!!! Only Jim gave him a good challenge. Haha Jim was a bit of a laugh actually, he got really drunk. I didn't get any sleep at all that night, even though I didn't stay up that late. I just couldn't sleep at all. The next morning I think everybody was a bit sick of the sight of each other and we were all glad to get back to shore where showers were needed!!! There wasn't really any showers on board....

All in all I enjoyed the trip but wished the boat was a bit faster so we could have seen a bit more. You can also do Tall Ship sailing which would be awesome. I also thought we'd get off at more islands instead of just sitting on a cramped boat!!! Soo back to shore we couldn't have a shower or anything as we didn't have a hostel...we had to wait for our bus which set off at 6pm and arrived in Hervey bay where we are now at 7am!!! An overnight bus :-( It actually wasn't as bad as I thought, the bus driver put a few films on and I managed to actually get some sleep. Not much but still, anything was better than nothing!!! So tomorrow we're off to Fraser island where we meet a group and elect one of us to drive a 4 by 4 round the island. Will update my blog when i get back!!!

Love Jaymi xxx

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