Whitsundays - Airlie Beach

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Wednesday - 5 December - Another overnight bus later, I arrived in Airlie Beach. At 7am I checked in with the Whitsundays travel peeps for my sailing tour and then headed to the hostel to dump bags and get a shower. I wandered down to the marina to check out where i should be meeting the Tongarra and stayed to watch the boats for a while before heading back into town to meet Deborah and Shaun for a drink, we're following each other you see!!

Thursday - 6 December - Today we begun a full day's sailing on Tongarra, most of the day was spent chatting to the other passengers and listening to the do's and don'ts of the boat. Eventually we had a lovely dinner up on deck and watched the sun set. We played a few drinking games, although i wasn't drinking so i watched everyone else get drunk. I wanted a low key evening as we're snorkeling first thing tomorrow and my track record with boats hadn't been great so far. I slept out on the deck under the stars which was amazing, there was a nice cool breeze blowing through all night, it was magic!

Friday - 7 December - We woke up early and went for a snorkel,. I saw a whole array of tropical fish including a huge wrasse which allowed us to tickle his slimy belly, turtles and colourful coral. Then we landed ashore and went to the Whitsundays beach which was a short hike away. It was picture postcard stuff, the sand was even finer than at Lake Mackenzie. Billions of dollars had been paid to Australia for tons of sand with which to build the hubble telescope lenses. We gave ourselves exfoliation treatments with the sand and messed about on the beach for an hour or so before it was time to leave for the boat. The evening entertainment was quite amusing, although it felt a little like being at a children's party with lots of 'organised fun'. We were divided into teams and played riske party games. Our team came second which was good going i thought, then the crew turned the whole deck into a disco and the dancing began. Again i slept up on the top and watched the goon ridden party goers larking around, i didn't need to drink when there was all this entertainment on offer!! I left them briefly to watch the dolphins, one of which we named Harris, circling the boat, attracted to the fish who were attracted to the honey trap of lights coming from the boat.

Saturday - 8 December - we snorkel again today and had a diving competition before heading back to shore. The trip was a lovely experience, definitely not as much of a party as Frasers had been but very enjoyable. The crew had arranged an after party for us at a local bar so after getting showered and changed, i headed there for free pizza and 2 4 1 cocktails. Some kid knocked our table over and we all got a lap full of sticky cocktails, not much fun in the heat so i and a few others headed back to the hostel before midnight to get changed..... we never made it back out after that!

Sunday - 9 December - Airlie Beach was a bit dull so i changed my bus and left for townsville to catch the ferry over to Magnetic Island.

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