The Wonderful Whitsundays!

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We spent today enjoying the beautiful Whitsunday Islands! Our sailboat, the S.V. Domino, was a wooden boat, built in New Zealand with local pine wood, and ultimately was sailed across the Tasman Sea to Australia by our captain, Reg. The boat has a capacity of ten people on journeys into the Whitsundays, so there were eight of us tourists, Reg, and his deckhand, Dale, on the boat today. There was very little wind in the islands today thanks to a lingering mass of high pressure in the area, so we supplemented our wind power today with the motor. Our journey to and from Black Island was slow, but the island scenery made the journey spectacular! On the way out, we were treated to views of dolphins swimming alongside us. On the way back, we saw dolphins, whales, and flying fish playing in the calm waters of the beautiful, blue, Coral Sea. When we arrived at Black Island, we anchored offshore and rode a little dingy to the island so as not to damage the corals in the shallow waters around the island. Once we made it to the island, we donned our wetsuits and hit the water. The reef was gorgeous! The corals are huge and their colors are brilliant purples, oranges, yellows and creams. So many colorful fish of all sizes peacefully swim through the waters around the corals. One of the neatest things we saw was a cloud of baitfish - thousands of silver fish circling the reef. At several points we were surrounded by these fish as we swam over the reef. It was really neat. Later, as we were walking on the beach on the island, something must have been hunting them, because we would hear a rush of water and see them jumping out of the water in hoards. The island was beautiful, and having to share it with only 8 other people was a really neat experience for us. There was an osprey family nesting on the island, and it was beautiful to see their little baby lifting his head up out of the best to look around at the world and practice flapping his wings. Imagine having that view from your nursery! Lunch was cooked by our captain's wife, Julie, and packed along for us to eat on the island. We enjoyed baked chicken, vegetable salads, prawns, potato salad, and rolls with butter. It was delicious! The day was amazing, and no words can describe the beauty. This was definitely a top ten life experience for us!

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