Whitsunday Island Sailing

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Head off on a 3 day/3 night Whitsunday cruise on the Anaconda III. The great selling point of this particular trip is that it also sails to the outer barrier reef, as well as the Whitsunday Islands, something we really want to do.

Day 1
We set sail with a champagne toast as the sun was setting to Hook Passage (between Hook Island and Whitsunday Island). Sail for a few hours before anchoring for the evening. We are the only boat in view so it's very peaceful and calm - the night sky looked amazing with the most amount of stars we have ever seen. At the back of the boat, where a light was shining into the water, shoals of fish swam (attracted to the light) and we heard dolphins in the distance.

Day 2
Early next morning, 6am, we set sail for Whitehaven beach, famed for it's silica sand. From the boat we were ferried by speedboat to the beach, where Debs carried out a diving skills lesson, Spen went for a jog along the beach. Later on we snorkelled then played beach ball games.

We then sailed to Luncheon Bay, just off Hook Island, which was a pretty horseshoe shaped beach and snorkelling area. Spen spotted a Green Turtle and we both saw lots of colourful reef and fishes along with huge box jellyfish. We moored here for the evening.

Day 3
Bait Reef, on the Outer Great Barrier Reef was our destination the following morning. As soon as we anchored, around 15 Giant Trevally fish approached our boat and stayed with us all day. We jumped off the end of the boat to snorkel with them, but only after a member of the crew got in the water first...there were pretty enormous fish and inquisitive around people!!

We were then taken by the speedboat to snorkel/dive out in reef to see some giant clams/deep caves and fantastic coral. The tide was incredibly strong in the morning, so is was hard work, but great underwater viewing. Instead of getting a lift back to our boat in the speed boat, a few of us hung on to a rope from the boat and snorkelled back at high speed, hanging onto the rope for dear life! That was great fun!

After lunch, we were dropped at another reef, which was great, and had no tides to battle against. We then sailed back to Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island to anchor for the last evening. From the back of the boat, we saw Reef Sharks feeding on huge shoals of squid. The last night on the boat was a lot more raucous than the previous two, with loads of boozing and organised games (like picking up the corn flake box with your teeth).

Next morning, we snorkelled in Blue Pearl Bay, which was the best snorkeling so far. The colourful fish were in abundance, they would swim right through us. A crew member also threw fish food out of the speedboat right onto our heads, so the fish went mad picking bits off of us in the water.

Sailed back to Airlie beach in the afternoon, and we both helped raise the sails.

In the evening, it was traditional for the crew to meet up with the group in a bar just out of town, Reefos. Everyone turned up and we partied until the early hours. The next day, we were both too tired to drive south, so we stayed in Airlie Beach another night.

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Photos

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Spen & Debs on Boat

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Spen in Stinger suit

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Anaconda Group

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The big black things are massive fish!!

party1
Fi, Spen and Andrew

party2
Julie, Marie and Debs

party3
David and Fi