Hectic Schedule but sooooooo good (whitsunday section)

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13/11/2008

Yes, i have fallen far behind with this due to an insane amount of bus trips, boating, camping and sleeping in sheds. BUT i will catch up.

First off The Whitsunday Islands, amazing!

We boarded our yacht named Pegasus at 4pm and shown to our bed for the next 2 nights. Mine happened to be in the kitchen with about 2 inches of head room to the ceiling. The yacht itself was very nice with a capacity of 20 people plus 3 crew all who were a good laugh and relaxed. The food was incredible and there was plenty of it (snorkelling and scuba diving is hard work), there was music and drinking games etc.

I happend to be the first one to help with the sailing, pulling some rope for a few seconds and then got chatting to some Americans with a few beers before we anchored for the night just off one of the islands. I went to bed fairly early as i was knackered plus the day after was to be extremely long.

I was awoken by the noise of the engine starting. impossible to sleep after that and before i knew it id eaten some breakfast and was heading to land on a small motorboat. The destination was Whitehaven Beach which apparantly has the finest sand in the world. It's white and it squeaks when you walk on it, you can also shine jewellery and teeth but i didn't try that. A few of us played some beach cricket and then we did a long session of snorkelling about 50metres of the shore. I had a practise scuba dive with the equipment but without the weights, just to get used to it and to also see if i wanted to have a proper go.

After lunch we anchored off the shore off another island where i did more snorkelling and then the scuba dive. I dived about 6 or 7 metres deep after a short safety and equipment rundown and it was so strange but amazing to be breathing underwater swimming through the coral of the Great Barrier Reef with loads of fish and clams that shut when they were touched. The instructor tipped some bread out of a bottle and hundreds of fish swarmed us. The dive lasted about 30-40 mins.
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We had to wear stinger suits everytime we went into the sea because of the jellyfish. I was a bit apprehensive about going in at first due to the stingers and sharks etc but when it came to it i was straight in.

There was 4 only four of us diving to begin with but a guy called Roy got cramp about 5 minutes in and i was in fits of laughter under the water while trying to breathe.

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Once more we sailed on and at sunset we anchored down for the night, some people went snorkelling again and there was jumping and diving off the boat. Some reef sharks were swimming around the boat (about 4) along with some big fish. The captain of the ship named 'Wazza' decided to chuck some left over Kangaroo meat from the night before into the sea where they munched.

The boat played some drinking games in the evening after another great meal and then i just sat out under the stars for a few hours. I've never been to a place where i could see so many!

The final day consisted of another early start, a swim from the boat to the beach which was about 200m, snorkelling the whole way and 2 hours or so around the corals. It was then time to sail back to the Marina where we disembarked and walked back to our hostel 'Koalas'.

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Other things i saw included quite a few turtles swimming on the surface and a dolphin in the distance.

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That evening we hit the bar called 'Magnum' where our boat had a reserved table and i took advantage of some free beer and discounted food. After a while myself and Lee went and met up with our friends from the bus and it ended up being a very long night.

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