Soaking Wet

---

Time for an update on my tour up the east coast of Australia...

At the moment I am in Airlie Beach, the gate to the Withsunday Islands. I arrived last friday after a long ride on the Oz bus coming up from Dingo (that's another story, to be told at another time). After a night out with two dutch guys I met a couple of days before while staying in the same dorm room (and who are also travelling with Oz experience), I had a relaxed start into the day - apart from the fact that the rain was pouring down like crazy. This was not the best outlook for my sailing trip through the Whitsundays and apparently a couple of day tours had been cancelled. However, we met for the introductory meeting at 1:30pm and were told that we would go sailing anyway as there was a chance that the weather would clear up on the next day. During the afternoon the rain stopped and everyone met at the marina of Airlie Beach, where we were met by the crew of the "Pride of Arlie". We left around 4pm and went straight for South Molle Island where we had accomodation for two nights - at this point I was a bit disappointed as I thought that it would be much nicer to stay on the boat for two nights. The scenery of the islands while sailing to South Molle was already very impressive. Little rocky islands topped by emerald green rain forests, with little secluded strips of beach in small bays. This looked very promising for the next day. We had a pretty good party on the first night with drinking games and quite some fun and getting to know each other. Of the people on the boat I already knew a big group of english who are also travelling with Oz Experience and who I had already met in Hervey Bay (starting point for Fraser Island - to be told later). Sunday morning we got up early and left the island around 8am. The weather wasn't brilliant - overcast sky and some gusts of winds... but it got worse. After perhaps an hour on the boat, while sailing towards Whitehaven beach (the trip stop for snorkelling and diving) the rain picked up again as well as the wind. The rain just kept getting worse and worse and soon pretty much everyone was soaking wet. I stayed on the deck most of the time as it wasn't too cold and the air was much better than under deck, where already a few people were suffering from sea sickness. When we got to the point where the open ocean was waiting for us you could already sea the heavy swell and the boat was rocking and rolling more and more... At this point our skipper asked the group if anyone insisted on going to Whitehaven beach - he told us that the waves would be rather high (crashing on the deck) and that it would be a very rough ride, so everyone agreed to turning back to South Molle, with a stop in the Nara inlet. There we went on shore to take a look at an old cave that was used by Aboriginal people 10,000 years ago (while it was still raining). We had a nice lunch on board the P.o.A. and after that left for South Molle again... The rain just got worse. At the island we could already see from the boat the water pouring down every slope - and it just kept going...

Well, to make a long story short: The weather did not improve today so we did neither get to do any snorkelling nor any diving. Instead from sailing a bit more today we headed straight back to Airlie beach. This was a bit disappointing, but then again: it is the rainy season, so what could you expect? Actually we have some real rough weather here at the moment and there has been some flooding further inland... Considering this (and the fact that a sailing company should have some pretty acurate weather forecasts) I would have expected that the company had postponed the trip for a couple of days... Then again this probably wouldn't have made a big difference as the forecast for the next days is not very promising and we might have waited for a week here in Airlie Beach (which is basically a strip of road with lots of bars and backpackers places) - not the most interesting spot to hang out at for a week of rain...

---