Hi everyone,

The time has come.............when we decided to come to Australia and we were researching things to do, the Whitsundays was at the top of our list!! It's like the seal sands of Australia but only a million times better! Haha We booked this trip back in Byron Bay from that mad stoner Jimmy so we were looking forward to it because it was meant to be SICK!! Haha

We made our way to the hostel called beaches which was included in our trip.....average hostel to say the least! That day we had to check in with our boat company to confirm our places. We got there and this guy (German) dropped a massive bombshell!!! Because of the massive cyclone and all the floods Queensland has taken a massive hit in tourism and the boat hasn't got enough numbers to run. We had three options either go on another boat or wait 3 days for the next departure or keep checking in all day to see if they get enough numbers. He said nearly every boat was having the same problem! We decided on spending the day checkingin every two hours to see if there was any change. We thought maybe he only needs a couple more people................................16 people for the boat to run and we thought maybe we had 14-15 nope...................FOUR!! We needed 12 more people to book on the boat in the next 6 hours but he persuaded us it was do-able!

It wasn't looking good.......however luck was on our side we kept on going back , nope not enough, nope not enough but the final time POW!!!!!.................................24 people!! IT's ON !!! lets do some sailing. Woooo!!

Let's just give you a little information about the sailing boat we picked.....ahh hemm (clear throat)..... The boat was called Apollo and is an 81ft Maxi racing yacht and has competed in all the Ocean classics in Australia, winning most of them but now it has retired to sailing the Whitsundays. It took a crew of 26 people to actually sail this boat but we only had 3, quite worrying! When we booked this boat we thought we would enjoy the thrill of sailing rather than a big cruiser but didn't realise what was in store!

We got on the boat at 8.30 in the morning and we set sail at 9.00am it was a scorching hot day! Once we got out the marina they asked for volunteers to hike up the sail. My hand was up like a shot, i got my orders on what to do and there were three of us pulling this sail up. OH MY GOD it was torture within 2 minutes I had a blister haha. That was the last time i helped on the whole trip every time they came to finding volunteers you conveniently find me on the lower deck or in the toilet! Shocking I know! I hadn't worked in 5 month I wasn't going to start now. Once the sails were finally up this boat did some serious sailing.......I'm talking crazy!! The Physics just didn't add up this boat was leaning so far over it should of tipped over I was hanging on for dear life and Louise was hmmmm......how do i put this.......screaming telling me she hates me for booking this boat!! Yeah that's about right Haha

Once I managed to convince Louise we weren't going to die i think she started to enjoy it. We stopped off and did a free scuba dive which was included in the trip. Was okay.....not the best dive we've done. Then we snorkelled and the snorkelling was great! While we were doing this the chef was cooking up a storm in the kitchen on the boat. The meals we got on this boat were excellent!! One night we got steak, the next night we got Sunday dinner, pasta, garlic bread, full english and each meal had fruit afterwards and there was some cake in there somewhere...........brilliant! We saw sunset and sailed under the stars at night oh and did I mention this was on Valentine's Day..... i can think of worse places to spend it! Next day we went to Whitehaven beach and the sand swirls which were amazing and we did some more snorkelling and scuba diving which was good we saw a massive Maori wrasse fish which was about 1m and a half in length and Louise was swimming with it for ages!

However the last day will stick in my mind......we went to this island in the middle of nowhere and it was like paradise we did some more snorkelling here and this is the place we swam with a green sea turtle it wasn't even bothered that we were there Louise must have been swimming with it for 1 hour straight it came up to the surface a few times for air and Louise was just their right next to it but unfortunately the camera had ran out of battery. It was amazing!! When we headed back on the 3rd day we did some more extreme sailing and this time the other side of the boat was scraping along the water sometimes it was even submerged! All in all it was an amazing trip, amazing snorkelling, amazing sailing, amazing food, amazing company! As promised this trip was f#@king sick mannn!!

Next stop Townsville!

Love Adam and Louise xxx