Day 129 Sunday 17th January 2010
Stacey says
We checked out at 10am and went to get ourselves a big English breakfast. It was crazy, the man in the café/shop, was running an internet café, a tour booking desk, and the little restaurant all by himself, so after discussing a tour with some customers he darted over to us and cooked up our breakfast! We then went to pick up some drinks and headed down to the harbour. We found our group, got our wetsuits and waited to board the yacht. It was a racing yacht called The Freightrain. We met our crew, Dave the Skipper, Ian the deckhand and Fabiano the Diving Instructor/host. We could barely understand anything she said, she was Mexican with little English, and so decided we wouldn't want to dive with her. In our group there was 6 of us from England, 5 Canadians, 2 Germans, 2 Danes, 1 Swedish girl, 1 French and 1 girl from Switzerland. 13 girls and just 5 lads! It was a scorching 47 degrees out today, so it was nice once we got the sails up and got a nice breeze, then it was no problem to all lay out on the deck sunbathing! Every so often there would be a turtle pop its head up out of the water (or 'window' as Steve called it, he was having a real struggle with words today, was quite funny). We didn't get a chance to snorkel today, so a few cold beers were cracked open once it was evening. Ian made up some dinner which was spag bol, salad and garlic bread. The Skipper then said he would take us into a resort if we fancied going over for some drinks, so at around 9pm, they filled the dingy with the first 8 people to take them over, they got about 50m from the yacht and the engine cut out! It was pitch black too. But they managed to get the engine working enough to return, so that plan was a no go! It was soooo hot in the cabin area, so when it was time to go bed, everyone dragged their mattresses to the deck to sleep up top!
Day 130 Monday 18th January 2010
Johno says
It was a little crazy going off to sleep under the stars at sea but what a great night of sleep on top deck and of course nothing to do with the numerous VB's consumed last night, we woke up as the sun started to cook us at 6am (ish) and headed off sailing through the WhitSundays again. After a short while we moored up and jumped off to explore the unbelievable Whitehaven Beach on WhitSunday Island, the sand was pure white and the water crystal clear, we had quite a few photo's at this point so we filled up the camera with some poses and jump aboard once again. Then we moved on to a nice little spot at Tongue Bay to crack on with some snorkeling, the water was a little choppy so I swallowed about a litre of salt water but the fish were pretty colorful so not all bad. I was constantly trying to look out for jellyfish in the water as the captain said you would rather be dead than experience the pain of a sting - of course we had our stinger suits on but the hands and head wasn't covered. Then we moored up for the evening, whilst we were sitting on deck a shrimp decided to jump out of the water and near enough land on our laps. The tender had been fixed up with some petrol so tonight we managed to get into a resort for some beers and watch another group jump into the pool whether by the individual's choice or not. Then we headed back to the boat for some sleep on deck again.
Day 131 Tuesday 19th January 2010
Stacey says
After a very small sleep, we were all awake around 6.30am, another blinding hot day, so were all glad to have an early morning snorkel at around 8am. There was a lot of pretty coral, and groups of small fish if you searched hard enough - where were all the big Australian fish???! We all had another sunbathing session, until it was about 11, everyone was cooking, and all fighting over a spot for shade! Haha, so the crew pulled the sails over to make cover, everyone grabbed their pillows and slept for a while! We made it back to the harbour at Airlee beach for around 1.30pm, we walked by the lagoon and jumped straight in to cool off! Headed back to Magnums and I had a very long shower as the marine shower/toilet wasn't the prettiest! We met one of our fraser friends who was on a separate boat, and he'd been attacked by a shark whilst snorkeling, stole his camera and luckily only a few scrathes on his hand. We had a coach journey this evening taking us up to Cairns, so we just pottered around until we left!