This is where you should be!!!

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So James completed his scuba diving course and is now a certified diver! We dived down to a wreck and saw a 1.5m turtle from about 30cm away - very cool. Also looked around the shipwreck which has now become an artificial reef with lots of exotic fish and the like.

After finishing the course we drove on up to Rockhampton - to a scrappy looking campsite on the outskirts of the city. We were camped along the banks of a great big dirty river - there were signs up everywhere saying to watch out for crocs. James was very excited but Anne got very scared after hearing a snorting sound coming from the undergrowth. James investigated unfortunately only finding a old guy snoring.

The weather was still very warm and sunny although getting increasingly humid. We continued up the coast to Mackay to stay on the worst and most expensive campsite since our arrival. Horrible scrappy dirty to pitch on, disgusting facilities and nasty biting insects everywhere - was not impressed.

Our plan was to drive to the Whitsunday Islands launching point Airlie Beach - got there around lunchtime and within an hour had booked ourselves onto a 100ft yacht with 30 other people to go on a three day three night cruise around the islands and the Great Barrier Reef leaving that same evening. The rest of the day was spent chilling out at a purpose built lagoon and sorting our stuff out for the trip.

At 8pm we joined the other people and crew on the Anaconda III for a champagne reception and were shown to our very cramped cabins - we were sharing a double double with a Portuguese couple - who were nice but even slower than Mclaren.

We set sail towards our first evening stop on relatively calm seas. A good sleep had us refreshed and awake at 6.30am for breakfast. (didn't have much choice when the anchor came up) Our first stop was Whitehaven beach - the place of many a tourist photo - the place was stunning with great fine white sand and a background of dense cloud forest. We played a few games on the beach all in our nice stinger suits (to protect from the two species of deadly jellyfish which patrol the waters).

We set sail to Hook Island and our first diving spot (after several people were sea sick). A 40 minute dive with Anne using a leaking tank had us running low on air and we had to surface - however prior to this Anne saw a 3m Mantra Ray flying through the water - James most annoyingly missed it.

Another evening with the beers put us to sleep on the gently rocking boat. The next day we set sail and went to the Great Barrier Reef about 30miles away. We again donned the diving gear and went down to around 18m - saw lots of cool coral, another turtle, lots of tropical fish and even were swimming with reef sharks. Again Anne seemed to use her air twice as fast as everyone else as she was dangerously low on air when we surfaced - everyone else was making a decompression safety stop but Anne and some German girls all had to go straight to the surface before they died.

At the surface we were swimming with a huge Maori Wrasse who seemed very friendly. Our final night on the boat was again nice and calm. Again we saw several sharks from the top of the boat. We woke again to beautiful sunshine. After some further snorkelling and lunch we headed back towards Airlie Beach and the harbour. For the next 24 hours everything felt like it was swaying!!

We are now heading back down towards Sydney over the next 2 weeks prior to us flying to South America.

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Photos

The boat with its sails
The aft sail was broken by a heavy gust of wind!!

Comments

[Al]

Sunset
Cool!