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Published: August 4th 2006
The crew! (missing Becky and most of Laurie)
From left to right Maoro, Elsa, Laurie, Liam, Sedrick, Karsten, Flo, Eoin, Fabien, Chem, Louise and Laura!Hi readers!
Our next stop was Airlie beach, from here we did our trip around the Whitsundays. Airlie beach was a nice place, a few restaurants and good bars. We met up with our crew from Fraser Island on the first night and had a great time, us girls even sang karaoke! We recovered the next day and went and relaxed by the swimming area in Airlie (you can't swim in the water in the beaches up the east coast because there are box jellyfish which can kill you in a matter of minutes if you get stung!). After an early night we were all ready for our sailing trip.
The sailing trip, well what can I say, its a long story...
The Whitsundays are a group of over 70 islands on the east coast and this was our destination. We went sailing on a boat called Otella with 8 other people and 2 crew. There were 2 english girls, Becky and Elsa, an Irish couple, Eoin and Louise, an Israelie couple, Chem and Maoro and 2 Germans, Fabien and Flo. Our skipper was Sekrick and deckhand Karsten. The boat was a lot smaller and older than in the brochure
when we first saw it but we didn't mind, we kind of expected that anyway! On our first day we sat on deck getting to know each other, we didn't have great weather so there's was no lounging in the sun working on our tans...booo!
At our first stop we went snorkelling and as the Whitsunday islands are located on the barrier reef it was amazing. We saw the most colourful coral and fish. We had to wear stinger suits to protect us from the deadly jellyfish, very unflattering! It didn't take away from how amazing the barrier reef is though, a whole different world. Then Sedrick infromed us that the steering had gone on the boat so we had to stay there for the night. We didn't mind though, we were having an amazing time.
The next morning I woke up with a few bites on my leg, the deckhand told me they were bedbugs!!!! I decided not to sleep in my bed the next night and sleep on the couch instead! On our second day we headed to a place called mantaray bay to snorkel, it was really nice. We saw giant clams opening and closing. I saw
a big fish eat a little fish right infront of my mask and one of the group saw a reef shark! It was a really good area to snorkel so we spent a while there and made the most of it. Liam jumped into the water with a group of fish off the boat and got to feed them bread from his hand! He looked a little scared though when they tried to eat him!!! We also went to a small sand island that we had all to ourselves. It was really nice, we relaxed here for a few hours and then returned to the boat for "afternoon tea"! The food on the boat was very good, we eat all round us! That night we had a great time with the group. We played some funny games and stayed up chatting into the early hours of the morning!
The next morning we were due to return to port but our engine went! We had to sail back so we were up at a 45 degree angle a lot of the time! I thought it was fun but some people were scared! Then our skipper got lost and our deckhand tried
to take over, mutiny on our ship!!! When we got back we complained about the boat, and to our surprise we were offered a full refund! Yay! We had the best time of our lives and for free! Brilliant!
Well that's all to report for now,
Take care,
Lots of love,
Laura, Laurie and Liam xxx
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