Whitsundays

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I dont want to become a product of my environment, I want my environment to become a product of me

...Jack Nicholson in the opening line as Boston's head Irish Mob Boss, in Martin Scorsese's, The Departed.

The next stop on the over commercialized and beaten track of Australia's East Coast was Airlie Beach. This time, think Sauble beach I guess...I dont know, or really care at this point, they're starting to all look the same. Each little place consists of hostels, bars, a lagoon, beaches (that you cant swim in as it is currently "stinger season"), bars and annoying travel planning shops that are all trying to lure you in to sell you a package. Essentially, the East Coast is the most beaten travel track that I can possibly imagine. Everyone is going to all the same places and you see all the same faces (which can be good and bad). The whole coast is beautiful, however, the only problem that I'm having, is finding a way to create elements of my trip that separate it from everybody else's. My trip up the coast can be compared to colouring by numbers. I mean, you can perfect everything within the lines, but at the end of the day, its essentially going to be the same as everyone else's.

Regardless, I was very excited to get away from another tourist mecca and go sailing around the Whitsundays for a few days. By the way, I have no Idea why they're called the Whitsundays and since nobody in any of these towns are products of Australia (especially the employees), it makes it difficult to find answers to your most basic Australian questions. When people in semi-authoritative positions, who should be able to respond to these basic questions are infact asked one, they usually just give you a very puzzled look (resembling those of a glazed eyed Panda) and pretend they don't understand you, like it is you who is out of their mind...then usually just laugh and say "ah, it's that way to the beach MATE!"....The thing is, that chances are, the person saying Mate to me, is actually Canadian. There are a highly disproportionate number of Canadian travellers here in Northern Australia. I am currently debating on telling people that I'm American, just to be different. Now, I dont even correct people when they say, where are you from in America?? I just say, "the northern part". I should add that it is quite rare that people think I'm from the U.S...everyone just assumes you're Canadian here, as I've met less than 10 Americans during my entire trip. I can think back to my first few days in NZ, whenever I saw someone with one of those cute little Canadian flags on their bags, I would go out of my way to find out where in Canada they were from, today I do the polar opposite (I hide). Those little flags on bags are quite ribonkculous here and are EVERYWHERE! I would have taken mine off my bag by now, if I didn't think it MAY come in hand in south east Asia....[I say "my bag", but really I should thank Farkas for lending me his for my entire trip. Its been a perfect bag, and now that I've accumulated a vast collection of unnecessary things, just the other day I was looking to make more room in the bag, when I stumbled upon a hidden pocket. I was pretty excited about this pocket and when I reached into, I found a little note inside with Farkas' distinctive Grade 3 handwriting on it. I unfolded it, only to read "you're hot" (with a cute little smiley face)....well, thanks Farkas, (while it may, or may not have been intended for me) it gave my self confidence a boost and put a smile on my face for the rest of the day]. I now go out of my way to avoid Canadians that I do not already know, and enjoy talking to Europeans the most....mostly the Swiss and Italian girls, who usually don't really understand what I'm saying and just laugh because they think I'm funny. Infact, these conversations can be quite entertaining and occasionally I'll even throw in the "haha, you have no idea what I'm even saying, do you?" and she'll just nod her head, smile and laugh. Lets just say that alot of things in conversations over here get lost in translation.

So, as I mentioned earlier, I had a packaged deal for Fraser Island and the Whitsundays. My "sailboat" (which actually turned out to be a Catamaran) , had 36 people on it, yet surprisingly was still quite roomy. The package said that we would have 3 days sailing and 2 nights sleeping on an island. Well, the first day we got on the boat at 3:15 and got to the island at 5 (not too many accountants over here, but I dont think that this qualifies as a full day!). Our island was beautiful and actually had a small golf course that we played 9 holes on. The round was one that John Daly would be proud of. First of all, we were a 5some. Secondly, we played in sandals, no shirts and between the 5 of us, had one putter. The other 4 guys, who were from Norway, Austria and DenmarkX2 had played a combined 12 rounds of golf. We each only had 1 ball, so the competition was to see who would be the last man standing at the end with his ball in hand. I decided I'd do my best Tin Cup impression and play the entire round with just a pitching wedge ( I realize that Kevin Costner used a 7 iron). After this we headed straight for the 19th (and most challenging) hole. We partook in a number of organized drinking games and the next mornings wake up @ 6am wasnt too fun....nor was riding on choppy waters for the next 3 hours.

For those 3 hours, we sailed towards one of the worlds most famous beaches....Whitehaven beach....again, when I asked the crew on board why it was called Whitehaven, they weren't too sure, saying that they were new on the job and that it was probably something to do with it being really white....oh, geez...how stupid of me not to have thought of that!! Whats going through your head when you think that this is actually an acceptable answer. I cant wait until I get an accounting job and somebody asks me a question about an Income Statement and I respond with..."ah, I'm new here, but I think its just all the income that one makes, and is shown here on a statement"...(by the way, the crew on board brought absolutely nothing to the table during this trip. If it werent for their sandwhich making skills when I was captain of the boat for half an hour I would have made the two girls that were deckhands (pictured), walk the plank). Whitehaven beach was gorgeous as well and the entertaining part about the trip there was that all sorts of girls spent their time in water up to their ankles with bags of jewellry in hand. To the ladies, the appealing aspect of this beach was that the sand is so fine, that it could be used to clean and polish any silver that they had.
*on a sidenote....there is an amazing photographer that I've stumbled across (and am now modelling myself after) who has taken amazing pics across Oz, named Peter Lik...here is a link to his best Oz pics..if you have time, take a gander.

Peter Lik's Best of

And if you're not yet sold, click on this link to see his famous buyers...my personal fav is the 2nd one with Bill Walton...with the pic of Run DMC coming in a close second.

Celebrity Buyers

The next day we went snorkelling on a reef which was cool and I found some really cool shells

that I will attempt to smuggle back to Canada and put on my desk next year, to remind me where I was the year before.

Hindsight being 20/20, if I could do it all over again, I would have booked an ACTUAL sail boat with far fewer people (10-14), where its more intimate (not in that way) and you actually get to know the people on your boat pretty well.

To make my blogs more interesting, I think I'll start doing a top 5 list. [requests appreciated as I will soon run out of ideas)
This one wont be funny, however, remains relevant to the previous collection of thoughts.

Top 5 foreigners in Oz:

1- The English (possibly the creators of the word Mate...I'm yet to get to the bottom of this)
2- The German (I'm not sure that there are any Germans left in Germany, they have rough accents and are tough to understand)
3- Canadians -recently met a girl who lives in the apartment buildings across from Islington station. So far this is the closest encounter to home base.
4- The Irish (I was told that 25%!o(MISSING)f those from Ireland, will spend 1 year of their lives in either Oz or the U.S) I think that maybe they're all still here after following U2 when they played here last month.
5- Scandanavians- all very nice and LOVE talking about snowboarding....and the Swedes love talking about Mats Sundin.

*there seem to be quite a number of Japanese/Chinese as well, but they seem to all stick together on guided tours and even hostels, so its tough to get a gauge on how many are here.

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Photos

Captain Bonk
not sure why captains seem to let me drive the boat over here.

sunset
Peter Lik, lookout!

For Tilden
sorry Tilden, it would have cost me an extra $5 per head to have them stand up.

Pretty but Annoying
These guys would fly up to you while eating breakfast and steal whatever they deemed to be tasty. I was the victim of a Honey packet theft. We tried doing a lineup, but we couldnt be sure who the culprit was.

Not your standard Golfers
not sure Islington Golf Course would approve of this attire.