26th Sept.

So, after a long (actually not so long, the time flew by) nine weeks in Airlie Beach, watching hoards of backpackers come and sail and leave, I finally got to go on my sailing trip round the Whitsundays, yay!! (Whitsundays so named as captain Cook landed on Pentecost Island (the highest one) on what he thought was Whitsunday. Actually, he got it wrong because he forgot to adjust the date when he crossed the date line in Tahiti, so they should rEALLY be called the Whitmondays, but that doesn't have the same ring, somehow..)

The boat I sailed on was called the SV Whitehaven, and billed as an eco-safari, which sounded like my kind of thing. We set sail at noon, after an initial slightly awkward half hour sat around at the marina with the rest of the passengers, who were a bit silent and didn't really talk to each other! But think that may have been partly due to heat from having just done the 15minute trek along the boardwalk from airlie beach carrying heavy boxes of goon.

So we motored out from airlie and a great atmosphere of laid-backness and relaxation descended.. the sea always seems to have that effect when you are out on it, in the sun, with nothing to do for the next three days apart from lazily sail along. First stop was Lachlan Sound, where we went for a snorkel (wearing stinger suits at the insistance of the crew, which were actually quite good as they kept us warm.. like wetsuits really). I never really saw the use of a suit that covers your body but your face and hands are exposed, surely the face is the LAST place you would choose to get stung (if you had to..?) but have since discovered that the main aim is to protect internal organs or some such rubbish. Anyway, the snorkel was great! Saw lots of lovely coral and fishes and some other people (not me with my low observancy scores) saw turtles and stingrays.

Next we motored off and into Marcona Inlet, on the south side of Hook Island, where we were to spend the night and got to see a lovely sunset over the hills of the islands. Dinner was somewhat underwhelming, veggie burgers and sausages with frozen mixed veg were left to go cold while the skipper rambled on about where we had been that day. But oh well. We drank some goon and got to know the other passengers a bit better; 3/4 were German, which was fine (although half of them just talked german together so it was a bit boring to listen to for everyone else).. in a breth of fresh air, I was the ONLY Brit! this is literally unheard of here on the east coast.. spoke english though with some yanks and a couple of dutchies, a swedish girl and some germans (making me feel a little lazy as an Englishperson that I didn't bother to learn another language well enough to be fluent in it, just coz everyone always speaks english [note to self: LEARN DUTCH!].

The next morning, up early (6am) and to Tongue Bay to walk up to the lookout over Hill Inlet (see photo) and down to Whitehaven beach for a couple hours of swimming and stuff. Back on the boat, we finally got to put the sails up! It made for a rocky passage, so much more so than when we were motoring, but very very cool to be traveling by wind power like in the 'olde days'. By the time we got to our second snorkel spot by Border Island, we were all HANK MARVIN! It was kindof rude that they gave us breakfast at 6.30am then nothing further til 1.30pm, when they presented an (admittedly good) big buffet, whcih we fell upon. Immediately after lunch it was "Into the water for a snorkel"...WHAT??!!! Such bad timing, snorkelling on a full stomach is bad times! But the snorkel was interesting, saw some massive fish!

That night into Nara Inlet,.also south Hook Island, I slept below deck for a few hours, woke up way stuffy and went up on deck to kip there for a few more, it was lovely to lie there, gently rocking with the cool breeze on my face and stars up above. During the night the wind picked up, was icy creeping in between my sheets and I pussied-it and retreated below! Next morning still windy, rocky rocky (so GLAD I don't get seasick) and the world was shrouded in a dusty smokey murk, which I later found out was the effects of the dust storm in NSW, blown up this far to QLD, quite amazing when you think about it.

The wind was high and the sail back STONKINGLY good! It was so so up and down and people got soaked a few times, but it was super-exciting and a fabulous end to the trip and to my time in Airlie. Back on land, I was up-n-downing for a good two days afterwards and still am a little bit. i want to return to Airlie and do another trip now, on my list is one in a racing yacht, to do some more real sailing and I'd also like to do one on an old wooden tallship to experience how it was years and years ago. I like sailing :)