Ahoy hoy sailor boy!
So continuing straight on from my last entry, Tuesday introduced us to the biggest party boat in Airlie Beach - The Clipper. After packing three days worth of s*** into the smallest possible bags with NO ZIPS (because apparently zips are the bane of everyone's existence and must NOT be carried onto ANY bost under penalty of death) we picked up our goon and cans of vodka lemon and lime (I know, its amazing they actually do cans of mixed drinks! They did Malibu and coke in a can as well!) and made the longer than expected walk down to the marina where our boat and crew - Braydon, Ryan, Steve and Stef - would be waiting for us. Ok so the walk was a bit of a b**** but the weather was absolutely glorious! Considering there had been rain rain rain for the last few weeks and everyone had come back of their trips saying 'ooohh it would have been ok if it hadn't rained all the time!' we were apparently being incredibly lucky! Very similar in fact to the luck we had on Fraser Island, so hopefully it would hold out! So we arrived at the dock and signed in etc ready for our boating fun to begin and boy were we in for a treat! The boat was MASSIVE - it actually looked like a pirate ship, it was incredible, and the best bit? This was going to be our home in the sun and the beautiful ocean for the next 3 days! Good times indeed!
There was about 50 of us in total I think, including Casper (the rub down guy) and a few others we had bumped into along the way, and as soon as we were on board we were quickly told that bare feet was the only option (fine by me) and that, if possible, we shouldn't fall over board…Best. Safety. Talk. Ever. After that we were given our room assignments and told to b***** off and unpack etc until dinner (I liked this boat already!) - turns out me, anna, sophie and maddy were in one of the only four bed rooms which was cool, and it happened to be right next to the staff's room - which meant we had to climb through the staff only bit where they steered and s*** and then climb down the stairs of death (a completely vertical ladder type stairway which, if you had seen it, you would have agreed was the stairs of death!) to get to our little cabin next to our little bathroom - which was im sure you agree VERY cool :P actually the boat was pretty luxurious compared to most so there was definitely nothing to complain about - except maybe the lovely nausea inducing swinging the boat was doing over the water…that's always fun! So we quickly grabbed some drink and headed up to the main deck where, laying on the top of the boat in a very titanic fashion, we drank and laughed and watched the sun set over the ocean in the most colorful and magical way - it really was utterly beautiful to see, and made me remember how peaceful it can be on a boat sometimes, just having the wind in your face and you sail through the sun's reflection on the water - this was going to be a good trip I could tell! We also had the pleasure of having our names written onto our feet with permanent marker as a way of getting to know each other…simple yet effective I thought! And the possibility of hilarious outcomes if names were spelt wrong or if, in a weeks time we bumped into people again, seeing faded scribbles on their feet and knowing exactly how they felt not being able to get it off! Dinner was fantastic. It really was! Most people had BBQ fish but I, and a few others, got to have chicken because we didn't eat fish, and that was just beautifully cooked! The ONLY thing missing was some sort of pudding…yes…pudding would have been literally the icing on the cake!
The evening was basically a massive piss up with everyone doing the usual games and chatter getting to know each other, however me and sophie spent most of it in the 'steering wheel room - whatever that's called!' with the crew listening to them play guitar and practicing songs by jack Johnson and Mumford and Sons, as well as discussing the blatant lie that Braydon was going to be neighbours. Trust me, in 6 months time you will NOT be seeing him dabbling with the likes of Karl Kennedy. Its just not going to happen. Sorry. But nice try Braydon :P That was about it for the first night, Maddy and Anna stayed out a little later and polished off a good portion of goon before heading to bed, ready for the nice early start in the morning!
And so Wednesday came about, and as promised the crew woke everyone up for breakfast - but what they didn't tell us was that this wake up call would involve a private rendition of Sex Bomb on guitar from Steve and Ryan right outside our door! We felt VERY privileged indeed, until we found out they did it for everyone! I wonder how many times they sung it that morning?...still, brilliant way to wake up! By 8am we were being jetted over the Whitehaven beach to enjoy a few hours of beautiful, gorgeous, unspoilt white sands whilst Demetri (the boats official paparazzi photographer) took pictures and kept record of all the attempts at building cars and ships out of sand, and pyramids of people in the water, and generally of everyone thoroughly enjoying themselves J the beach was actually pretty damn nice and the sand really was perfect - it was so thin! The only thing was that if we wanted to go in the water we had to wear stinger suits because of the jellyfish this time of year - but even with that, the sand, the colours of the water and definitely the sun, all equaled actual bliss J. Our next stop was Blue Pearl Bay for snorkeling and diving. Now I already knew I couldn't dive much to my annoyance, but watching sophie and anna have a go was almost just as good - you know the whole living vicariously through someone, well sophie is good enough to let me do it through her when needed :P but anyway snorkeling was great, really really great J we had the stupid stinger suits on and we looked total idiots trying to pretend walking on reef and pebbles didn't hurt our feet but once we were in the water - the reefs were so pretty! The water was pretty clear which always helps and the little schools of fish were so cute as they swam past! There was this one fish - called big elvis - who apparently always comes back when people are around and lets them feed him and swims next to them etc but I didn't see him L sophie did though when she was diving so at least we know he existed! I did however manage to find nemo. And im very proud of that. :P the longer we were in the water definitely the more silly we got! During our briefing on snorkeling and diving we had been taught the hand signals to help communicate with each other and one of them - the ok sign - was then expanded into the 'f***ing ok' sign to show we were really enjoying ourselves! This, a motion involving poking a finger through the hole made in the ok sign, produced hours of fun and lots and lots of silly photos, even though looking back through them im pretty sure we will be the only ones who know what we are actually doing in the photos! Oh well!
Coming back to the boat there was tea and biscuits waiting for us, and of course as with any large important and serious vessel, a water slide off the edge just begging us to jump on! However my massive amount of maturity took over (and my desire for a cuppa!) and I refrained, plus I had already taken my stinger suit off, but from the screams I heard im pretty sure Anna had a go or two! Dinner that night was spag bol and once again the sunset was almost indescribable - there was this one time just before dinner where we were all just laying around on the top deck reading and drinking in the sun - incredibly peaceful and just utterly brilliant, and if my camera hadn't run out of batteries whilst I was snorkeling (because you know, my new one is water proof so I could take pics of all the fishies :P) I would have a picture to prove how lovely it was…well I know so im happy anyway :P that night there were some party games organized which funnily enough didn't start until late into the drinking sessions and also funnily enough involved a dressing up box full of old clothes that god only knows where they got them from! The games ranged anything from musical statues to sex position games and by the time it came to the bid dance off final there were only guys still in, and the winner? The guy who got naked. Obviously. Oh did I mention the prize was either a packet of crisps OR a bar of chocolate? The new king of the Clipper chose the crisps - I think he made the wrong choice but ill never tell him that :P so after everyone had mostly found their own clothes again it was time for a bit more drinking and a bit of dancing to go with it, so all in all a very productive night! :P oh and we saw dolphins! In the dark swimming next to the boat! Very cool indeed :P
Our final day of the trip was a fairly short one as we had to be back at Airlie beach by 2pm, so we had a quick breakfast and went to another bay to do some more snorkeling. This time the water was by far clearer and there were a lot more different kinds of coral as well so obviously I didn't have a camera (sods law eh!) but I definitely enjoyed it more this time! The colours and textures of the different corals were really weird - there was this one big yellow one that looked almost furry and it was really hard not to brush past it when you swam over it but then if you did it felt really creepy! There were definitely jelly fish in this reef so I was quite glad of my stinger suit but on the other hand it was also a much better reef to snorkel since it had loads more fish and some turtles too! Speaking of turtles we also had to have a safety briefing on them, which basically said don't try to climb them, ride them or rape them. Because they might get angry. I wonder sometimes about the people they let aboard these boats?! After a couple of hours snorkeling and soaking in the rays on the little pebble beach me and maddy headed back to the boat whilst anna and sophie had another go at diving. When we got back there were hotdogs waiting for us for lunch (how much better can you get!) and then we heard it…'SOPHIIIAAAAAA COME GET YOUR SAUSAAGGGEEEE' - it was the shrill sound of war, the scream of terror on the water, the song of annoyance to every human being…it was Steve making fun of this really irritating bimbo called Sophia who we had had to put up with the last few days, well it was her voice we had to put up with - her face I just ignored, but that voice! It actually pierced through to your very soul, and the best bit was that EVERYONE thought the same! Hence why the captain of the boat was allowed to mock her on the big speaker…im sure that she just thought she was really popular and everyone loved her…we did not. So finally we got back to the dock, fished our flip flops out of the bins and said our goodbyes to the crew, some of which were joining us for a party that night, but others were disappearing form our lives forever…it was fantastic. The whole trip, it was just brilliant. I had great friends, new friends, a great crew, sun, sea, sand, a couple of nemo fish and a big one called elvis - really, when you think about it, what more could you want?
Once we got back to the hostel most of us had a snooze - im not going to lie it is VERY exhausting to lay about on a boat whilst other people work and you have to just enjoy the sun and your time there - its not easy! But a couple of hours later we were ready for our after party at phoenix bar - and yes we got free pizza again! We also found out that James, Elliot and Alice had arrived and were up for a drink or 7 so we headed off to find them, only for me and braydon (from the crew) to stop off for a detour at Mcdonalds where the best part of my evening occurred… basically he ordered a big mac, fine. He then decided to sit down to eat it instead of walking and eating so we could meet up with everyone, not fine. So I did what any girl would do. I stole his big mac and walked away with it. Now he had two choices, he could sit there and wait for me to return with his burger and maintain his pride and dignity, ooorrrr he could follow me and lose not only his balls but all respect from the rather large group of guys sitting at the next table who were listening to the entire exchange between us! Oh how he shouted at me to come back, he actually thought I would that was the best part! I made his options very clear to him and finally, after a very heated debate helped along by the group of guys, I started to walk away with his burger back to the hostel insisting I could swap it for a drink at the bar. This apparently was the last straw and much to the dismay of the guys and his own masculinity, he ran after me, or should I say he ran after his burger. Oh the power, oh the respect…oh s*** he lifted me up and carried me all the way to the bar exposing my ass to most of the Airlie Beach residents…fair enough ill give him that one. Eventually after Braydon had left and Maddy and Sophie had gone to bed, Anna sneaked out to see the boys and Alice at the other hostel and I, well, I went to bed too because I didn't know what room they were in and I didn't even realize she had left to see them so, fair enough - less of a hangover for me! But a bloody good night all the same :P.
And so I leave you once more as in roughly 45 minutes I will be heading off to Magnetic Island with Sophie, Anna, Maddy and Alice!! But I will leave you with this final image…the first sight of the day, after a night of vodka and a much earlier start than I would have liked…I walk into the bathroom and find a bra and a massive pile of fake hair lying on the side by the sink…what more could you want eh?
xxx