I'm now on an 83ft maxi yacht called The British Defender, somewhere between Mackay and the Whitsundays. Since the disastrous weather on Fraser Island, I've been praying for things to pick up - two days on a boat in torrential rain does not sound like fun! For now, things are certainly looking up - the sun is shining and we are sailing away from the rain storms behind us.

Apparently the British Defender was built in Southampton for the Whitbread Around the World Race and cost our government 3.5 million pounds. It has a huge mast reaching 115ft. In 1989, they even opened Tower Bridge especially so that she could go up the Thames for a christening ceremony by The Duke of Edinburgh. It's now owned by Southern Cross Sailing Adventures, who take guests on 2 day, 2 night sailing adventures around the Whitsunday Islands in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. Our skipper sailed it all the way from Majorca.

Although there's space for 24 guests, we have the boat to ourselves (19 of us) along with the skipper, 2 crew members and a cook (a really friendly girl from Essex.) My bunk is down in an 8 bed cabin at the front of the boat, most others are in the main living area. We are living in very close quarters so I spend most time out on deck, it's quite miserable down below although comfortable enough.

The crew are keen to let us help out with little jobs on deck, but in general we just sit back and enjoy the ride. We boarded at 1pm yesterday and didn't anchor until at least 8pm. I got up at the crazy hour of 5.45am yesterday to go for a run around Emu Park, knowing that I was going to be stuck on a boat for the next couple of days. I am very grateful I did that now!

We anchored at Thomas Island last night and this morning we headed out to Whitehaven Beach and Hill Inlet. Whitehaven Beach is exactly the stereotypical image people conjure up of paradise! It has unbelievably white sand and clear waters, and although normally very busy, we almost had it to ourselves! It was wonderful to finally get off the boat to walk around for a while. We were taken in two groups using the dinghy they trail behind the boat. We went to look at some stingrays and went for a swim, but had to wear stinger suits due to the number of jellyfish. I also went for a barefoot run up and down the beach a few times, despite getting some very strange looks given the intense heat! There's a rainforest walk up to an incredible lookout over the inlet, where we took plenty of pictures before walking back down the other side of the island to be picked up again at Tongue Bay.

After lunch, we were taken on our first snorkelling adventure on the reef at Luncheon Bay followed by Manta Ray Bay. They provided the masks, snorkels and stinger suits. It was such a surreal experience! There were so many colourful fish round the coral - it looked just like things I'd seen on Attenborough style television! I have to admit that I wasn't altogether comfortable swimming amongst thousands of fish and jellyfish... Our feet and hands weren't covered and although I could see plenty of jellyfish, I'd been told that the harmful ones - Irukandji - are too tiny to see and you don't realise you've been stung until 45 minutes later...

When I was dropped back off at the yacht, there were some big bat fish hanging around below the ladder. I was peer/crew pressured to jump in and swim with them - only for the skipper to chuck bread at me so I was swarmed! Obviously I screamed, but was sort of laughing at the same time, getting flashbacks of being relentlessly tickled by Chris, Tim and Pete when I was little - unable to stop laughing but hating every second of it!

We're now relaxing on deck, having anchored at Blue Pearl Bay for the night. We saw a beautiful sunset and I'm now watching some impressive lightening in the distance. Hopefully it doesn't come too close to us! I am enjoying myself but also looking forward to being on dry land tomorrow...