Reef Jet Whitsunday Trip

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We faced the possibility of being herded, and booked a day trip on Reef Jet to get to see the Whitsunday Islands and do some snorkelling on the reef.

And we had a lush day, didn't feel like cattle being moved here and there en masse, in fact it was very chilled and pleasant.

We spent an hour or so snorkelling just off Border Island, where the coral is fantastic. It's amazing to see this whole different world under the water. We wore stinger suits, as advised, as those pesky marine jellyfish are still at large, although we didn't see any.

We then cruised over to Whitsunday Island and took a short walk through the bush to the Hill Inlet lookout to view the Whitsunday Passage with the amazing pure silica white sand banks, with Whitehaven Beach in the distance.

After a buffet lunch on the boat we were taken over to Whitehaven Beach for a look-see and a swim (again, with stinger suits on, although some people risked it without). The sand there is brilliant white - it's pure silica and apparently there's a fine of between $20,000 to $70,000 if you take any of the sand (how they police that I'm not sure) and the story goes that they even refused NASA a second lot of sand for the Hubble telescope.

I would imagine the problem's not your Josephine Blogs tourist taking a cup full of sand for the mantel piece back home, although if every JB did it it would mount up. I expect it's the likes of NASA, and companies making faux beaches, taking it by the ton that's the issue. But the sand's constantly being created by the tectonic plates rubbing together, or something like that, so it is presumably replaced eventually... Still, we took only the bits that stuck to our stinger suits and feet, and dutifully left our cup of sand behind...

The Whitsundays is THE place to have a boat or a yacht; it's just the perfect place to potch around the islands - moor up your Fairline Targa 52, open the bubbly and kick back...

And it never really gets winter here - it's either raining or really hot and dry. I would imagine it's way too hot here in summer, considering it's now mid autumn and it's banging hot - 30 celsius yesterday when Airwofl did his helicopter lesson.

Like typical Brits, we're always waiting for a cold front to come in and the weather to break, but we keep reminding ourselves it's tropical here so it's odds on toasty most of the time.

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Photos

Snorkel Virgin
'... snorkel, mask, snorkel, mask... breath through the snorkel... sounds easy enough...'

Comments

[evo]

HI Litch and Jools,That beach looks beautiful ...so you fancy another boat now!! (remember you can,t drive one mate!!(penarth marina) Enjoy!! WATCH OUT ...........SHARK!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lichie]

Hi Evs!
Oh yeah Penarth Marina.... perhaps I'll just stick to helis. Hope all is well, see you soon (maybe!) (if we get home!) (or just sod it and stay in Thailand) Jools n Lich :-)