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We arrived in Airlie beach in the morning at 9am after a mammoth 13 hour coach ride. I thought at one point my legs wouldn't work, but they hadn't failed me yet and this was no exception. Happy days !
After a short walk passed part of the marina I got to Nomads hostel where we would be staying for 2 nights before heading off on our Whitsunday boat - The Atlantic Clipper.
I won't muck about and talk about Airlie Beach too much as it's basically a functional resort servicing the boats and the backpackers that go on them.
So on to the main event.
I will try to put into words what has become the highlight of my entire trip. Our boat, the Atlantic clipper, was a huge vessel catering for 54 people plus 6 crew and it was full. When I first heard this number of people were going to be on it I thought that it could maybe a bit too busy for the size of the boat. But the boat was more than comfortable and there was buckets of room to move around in.
We were underway at about 2pm and
we cruised over to Hook point, where we dropped anchor and stopped for the night. Everyone on the boat was getting on well by this point so the crew decided to have a team contest.
The main element of the game was a talent show. I haven't laughed like that continuously for quite a long time. Our group decided to do a song about the 9 Dangers of Australia, which were - snakes, jellyfish, dingoes, crocodiles, spiders, melanomas, cyclones, and finally goon (ok I have missed one out, I can't remember it !). Goon, in case you didn't know, is a wine. However, I use wine in the loosest of senses. It is basically the dregs of all the left over wine that hasn't been bottled and so it is quite cheap. For most backpackers it is the drink of choice. I try and stay away from it as it gives me the worst hangover ever.
After our improvised song there was a group which comprised of two Canadian girls (Dixie and Jenna) and 5 German guys. A couple of the German guys could not speak much English so when their team decided they would be reading an
article from Cosmopolitan magazine about arousing ladies they apparently spent quite a lot of time memorizing what they had to say to get it right. One member of their group was wearing a blue sleeping bag cover and he had a straw in his mouth. I shouted out that I would like to ask a question as I didn't know what he was or what he was meant to be and he shouted "I am a snake!". Yes, I know, it doesn't make any sense at all but it was hilarious.
Our team won the competition overall and we were awarded a prize of a chocolate bar each 😉
The next morning we were woken up by the dulcet tones of Steve the first mate with his rendition of a Fijian song. A pretty novel way of waking people up I thought. We then made our way to Whitehaven beach.
This beach is famous as it is 98% pure silica sand. The sand is so white that it reflects the suns rays and as such doesn't ever get hot. NASA even took 10,000 tones of it to help them build the lens on the Hubble telescope.
The beach was stunning. We stopped there for a couple of hours and. Got a chance to swim, albeit with a stinger suit on. The waters around the Whitsundays and further up the coast to Cairns have jellyfish in them that you don't really want to get stung by so it is mandatory that everyone wears one.
We got back to the boat and we travelled round to Lunchoen Bay. This is where I got to make my first dive as a PADI qualified open water diver. Te conditions however were pretty poor and the visibility was only about 3 meters compared to about 10- 15 meters in Byrn Bay. So it was a bit disappointing.
After the dive I got a chance to snorkel and this was much entree. I saw lots more fish and was able to get really up close to the Great Barrier coral reef. Some of the structures under the water were amazing to look at. I had an underwater disposable camera as well so I could take some photos.
Back on the boat I kept the stinger suit on and before long we were all jumping off the boat and heading
down it's custom made water slide. It was a great time and reminded me again of how much I love the sea.
That evening, we had a question and answer session of where we had been and what we had seen and the crew got us to play a Fact of Bullsh!t game. The idea of this was for one of them to state a fact and for one of s to get it right. If we did the newest crew member - Jimmy, had to eat a spoonful of vegemite. He didn't do very well on that.
The next day we were up about 6.30am and I s in the second dove group. I had thought about not diving again as the visibility the day before had been so poor but I definitely made the right decision. The visibility was aloft better, maybe up to 8 meters in plces, and there was a lot more to explore in this dive location - Blue Pearl Bay.
We went through about 6 coral tunnels and overhangs which were amazing to see. I'd also managed to really get a hang of my buoyancy on this dive and using
my fins slot more efficiently to get me turning in the water instead of using my hands. I did have a slight hairy moment though when my regulator hose got caught on some coral, but I kept calm untangled myself and I was on my way again.
Benny the dive instructor was really good. He was very patient with all of us and took us to some great places. The highlight of this dive though was feeding Elvis.
Elvis is this big Blue Manta Rat fish and Benny got out his fish food bottle and Elvis sucked on it like a baby would do a milk bottle. It was really something else to watch. Elvis came closer to us and we were able to stroke him. He felt like velvet. He was about 1.5 meters long and about 1 meter high and very friendly.
After that we all surfaced and got back on the boat to head back to Airlie Beach.
This for me has been the highlight of the trip so far in Australia. The views were breathtaking, the people and crew on the boat were amazing and the Scottish girls that I was traveling
with even got a birthday card the majority of the people on the boat including the crew signed the card.
When we got back to Airlie Beach we headed home and then headed out for the after party. As it was my birthday party and Benny's last trip (he has to go and do agriculture work to get his second year visa to stay in Australia) the party was pretty full n and. Hd a massive hangover the next day.
All in all it was a great 3 days, some of the best times I have had in this trip. If you can do this you should. Also try and get on the Atlantic Cipper boat and also if Jimmy is one of the crew members, shout kangaroo and jellyfish at him every now and again 😉
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