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Arrived in Airlie Beach on 3rd May. Airlie Beach looks like a smaller version to Cairns: it has a lot of fast food places to eat, and quite a good nightlife. It also has a lagoon by the sea complete with barbecues to chill out through the day. The main point of any stop in Airlie Beach is to go sailing on the Whitsunday Islands, we’d booked to do that between Friday and Sunday so we had a couple of nights in Airlie first.
On the first night we played the customary drinking games (Keeping things cheap) with our room mates, we stayed at the Magnums hostel here as well- our 8 person dorm was pretty cool, there were a couple of Irish girls, a Canadian called Jeric (soon changed to Jericho!) and a Frenchman called Eloir. We later found out that the Irish girls had met our mate Marty Flannagan in Melbourne!
We headed to a bar where low and behold, speak of the devil, we bumped into Flanagan and Chris again, they were sinking a few beers before catching their bus at midnight (Was a 14 hour journey, bet it felt like about 2 days for them!)
Childish?!
Our masterwork before its destruction After Marty and Chris had left we headed to the nightclub Mama Africas- Jonny seemed to have acquired a taste for Sambuca and Coke, so was dancing like a mentalist as per usual.
The next day was made up of chilling by the lagoon and having an early night because we had to be up bright and early the next day to go on our 3 day sailing adventure. We were woken up in the night by Eloir et al returning from their night out. It seemed that Eloir had decided to sleep outside our room for some reason and when Jeric tried to explain that his bed was only two metres away and tried to move him Eloir responded “I am a f*@%/g piece of meat” sounded so funny with his French accent! He’s one of the coolest characters since the Fonz.
On Friday we headed to the harbor to board our boat, which would be our home for the next three days, and sail the Whitsunday Islands. The boat was called “Jade” and had onboard a skipper, John; firstmate, Jeff; a cook, Lucy; and about 30 passengers. Basically at night we dropped anchor at a resort
The fab 4
On "Jade" and 17 stayed on the boat whilst the rest slept on this resort. We had a mix of nationalities: Americans, Israelis, Germans, Dutch, Canadian, and Irish.
On day 1 the weather was ok in patches but generally quite grey, we could still chill out on the deck though. The Whitsunday Islands are a group of Islands in the Great Barrier Reef that are most accessible from Airlie Beach, even with the weather not being great the islands still looked beautiful. The first Island we stopped at was Black Island, We done some snorkeling, seeing some Batfish, the water here was so much calmer and clearer than the snorkeling in Cairns.
At the end of day one we dropped anchor outside this resort on one of the islands and all got off the boat to get showers. At the resort we saw this Canadian guy called Mark complete with a 40pack of VB Bitter, he was off his face! Apparently he was supposed to be on our trip but he’d missed the boat, rather than cutting his losses he decided to get a helicopter out to the resort and meet us at night. He came across as a bit
eehhhh i'm in my cubby hole likes!
Will poking his head out of our cabin, which was below the front of the deck of an idiot cos he was so drunk but he soon redeemed himself on day 2.
The first night on the boat consisted of drinking games before hitting the sack at 2am. Me, Jonny and Bull were in one small cabin- it really was a case of three in the bed and the little one said, slept ok though.
Had to get up at 7am for breakfast, wasn’t best pleased. Canadian Mark was straight on the VBs and treated us to many dance moves throughout the day to the tunes that were blaring out of the speakers. Some particular favorites of his were “Gold-digger”, “All for one and one for all”, anything by Bon Jovi,. The highlight of his dance show was undoubtedly “New York, New York”, he had us in tears laughing at him.
After another spot of snorkeling we headed to Whitehaven Beach, the sun was out as well for a change. It’s safe to say that this beach was nicer than the one in Whitehaven, Cumbria- in fact it’s the nicest beach I’ve ever been to. It was so unspoilt, the sand was white and the water was clear. We decided to spend about an hour of our time on the beach constructing a sandcastle, mature eh?! Were really pleased with our efforts and needed to give it a good send off, we decided to enlist the help of one drunken Canadian to destroy it in style for us! Whilst crushing the castle screaming like Braveheart Mark gave us the immortal lines, “I got all the freedom I need right here in this f”@%^ng can!” - He basically is everything Dan Holtby aspires to be, not quite as big though. Whitehaven Beach was awesome, we walked up a trail to get to a lookout point, unfortunately the heavens had decided to open; the views were still pretty sweet though.
The second night took a similar pattern to the first and we awoke on Day 3 feeling a little worse for wear again, this didn’t last long though as we soon brightened up when the Sun came out and found out we were going Banana boating. Ever the child I was looking forward to honing my Banana Boat prowess, Mallorca ’96 was my first experience on one and I was a legend on them then- had the child Banana boat prodigy still got it… of course he did! I didn’t pick the best seat in the house for the ride though, there were two rows of five on the inflatable and I was right next to bloody Jonny! He was always ready to try and push you off, even when we were going in straight lines, flaming Ginger! The first casualty on the ride was Pascal the German guy, soon to be followed by the ever reliable Bully! After one turn I thought everyone on my side of the Banana had fell off except for me, however Will had somehow managed to keep one hand on his handle despite his whole body being in the water and clambered back in (He christened himself James Bond!) The inevitable happened at one stage with the boat overturning, I decided to stick it out for a couple of seconds holding on and when the boat flipped back around I noticed that I was the only one to survive, looking oveer my shoulder at the other nine bobbing in the water! Yes! Maybe I should consider taking up a career in Rodeo (Nb to self must ask the Cookmeister for advice!)
After the Banana Boat ride we got back on Jade and set off back to Airlie, about 3 hours away. The weather was so great on the final day, everyone was sunbathing on the deck listening to music, a shame it couldn’t be like that on the first two days. Arrived back in Airlie at 3pm and still felt as if we were on the boat- took a while to get my land legs back again! All in all the sailing on the Whitsunday’s was a rip roaring success, the Islands are so beautiful and despite the boat being a little cramped throughout the day we had a wicked time.
At night we had a social with some of the crew and passengers on our boat, the German guy Lukas was particularly worse for wear. We ended up having Pascal tagging along with us for the whole night whilst his friends fell by the wayside- had a great night. Returned to the hostel to find that Man U had pipped Liverpool to 2nd, cest la vie, it’s the FA Cup next Sat and then the World Cup, cannot wait!
Mike
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