Back to Airlie ...

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The boat was officially buggered so we just spent this morning crawling back to Airlie Beach! We put the sails up and i was in charge of navigating/working the rudder, and thankfully managed not to crash us into anything. It was killing my arm after about 5 mins but i managed to do it for about an hour and made Lucy take lots of cheesy photos of me pretending i knew what i was doing. It was a shame to say goodbye to the others, and also we were missing out on the group night out as we were getting the bus at 8pm, but i have to say it was quite nice to be back on dry land as feeling sea sick is exactly like having a hangover and we'd all been suffering a bit.

We had a few hours to kill in Airlie before getting the bus so we went to "Vic Hislop's Shark Show" which was great and scared us both to death. Saw a very cheesy video by Vic himself (it reminded us both of that training video in "The Office") about why whales strand themselves on beaches (Vic's theory is that they are being chased and attacked by great whites). There were loads of photos of him with monster sharks (he's been a shark hunter for about 25 yrs) that he'd killed. It was great for someone like me who has a really morbid fascination with these things but would shit my pants if i ever actually saw one!! There were loads of really interesting articles and photos, including one that a diver took of his friend about to be chomped in two by a great white - amazingly the guy survived (albeit without his legs!) But the shark absolute 'pièce de resistance' was a REAL, frozen great white in a tank (v. Damien Hirst). It was really freaky even though you know it's dead, it was horrible going up really close to it and looking into those jaws (even though it's behind glass). I'm such a wimp! It was quite spooky though as it was kept in a dark room, grim.

Got the bus to Townsville with Sinead and Ciara, 2 girls from the sailing trip, which was quite an uneventful overnight journey, stopping off once at one of those delightful roadhouses with rancid food and really ancient 1970s style photos of the various meals on offer. They're horrifically depressing places at any time of day but in the middle of the night they take on a whole new dimension.

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