Whitsunday Islands

We went on a three day tour on a beautiful sailing boat called the British Defender to the Whitsunday Islands.  The Whitsundays are beautiful, hardly touched islands with amazing forests and beaches.  I could quite happily live there.

We arrived in Airlie Beach harbour, loaded with goon (crap "wine")  to find our boat.  It was a fabulous sailing boat which holds about 30 people (including crew).  Everyone on our boat was fabulous.  There was such a blend of cultures since there were people from all over the world.  It made a nice change from just seeing British backpackers everywhere.

We sailed out to our first anchorage point.  I'm not sure I have ever been sailing, but it was a pretty ace experience.  We all had to sit with our feet over the side as the boat almost tipped vertically.

Anyway, we ended up in a beautiful cove where I went a bit nuts taking sunset photos everywhere.  Was such a beautiful evening though.  We were really lucky with our weather, especially since the day before we were set to sail was disgustingly wet.  That would have ended in major sea-sickness and that wouldn't have been cool.

The next evening we went to Whitehaven Beach which is a beautiful place on one of the islands where you can find stingrays and sandsharks.  The sand is like stepping on caster sugar - yum.

We all had to wear fabulous, yet ridiculous stingsuits to protect us when we are swimming because of the jellyfish.  It seemed like we were the only people on the beach wearing them which made it all the more hilarious.  I don't think it helped that they were pretty much baggy wetsuits (and everyone can guess how attractive that is)!

In the afternoon myself, Claire and Svenja (a new German friend) went scuba diving.  Kerry was meant to join us but due to her having asthma as a kid, she wasn't allowed :-(  We saw a lot of fish but the water was very murky due to the rain so the visibility was only about 2 metres.

We then set sail again before stopping for dinner.  I'll just have to mention here that Mel, the boat cook, was immense and the food was amazing.  After dinner, lots of goon was consumed which resulted in bad line-dancing, drunken attempts at jiving and long, detailed talks about Spongebob Squarepants.  Ace times all round.

The next day we set sail to head home.  Mel decided it would be a good idea to make everyone drink the left over goon so she marched round pouring goon into everyone's open mouths.  This was a pretty low moment considering it was about 9am! Haha.

We then got off the boat very dirty (30 second showers only allowed - why bother) and covered in goon thanks to Brian the deckhand using a waterpistol full of goon to shower us as we were leaving, and headed back to our hostel for a shower and a snooze.

All in all...  Best. Trip. Ever.