An alarm was not needed for our early morning rise due to the noise of the crashing waves. We were glad of the early wake up call as whilst eating breakfast and watching the sun rise, we were able to watch the turtles of the ocean take their first breaths of the day, what a great way to start the day!

After grabbing a wetsuit incase of any stingers in the ocean we jumped on the tether and shot off into the distance towards The Whitsunday's, Whitehaven Beach. And guess what happened... Picture it.... We are in Australia, in paradise, living on a catamaran, with the sun shining down on us.... Then... The heavens opened and down came a tremendous amount of rain! But this did not spoil anything, we embraced the rain!

Whitehaven Beach is a unique experience and one day will never be the same! This is due to the huge amount of water entering and exiting the bay each day. It is also the purest sand in the world, made up of 98.9% silica - With its cleansing qualities, Char was gutted that she didn't have any jewellery with her to wash in the sand, but with Emily and Johanna she rubbed her hair in it! At least she didn't fall for brushing her teeth with it!

With the rain pouring down, nature was out in force: soldier crabs patrolling the beach in their hundreds; stingrays lining the shallows and lemon sharks hiding in the cracks.

On the way to Luncheon Bay, not a settled stomach was onboard. 3m swells were to blame for this. It was like the scene out of forest gump, with Matt shouting "Lieutenant Dan!!" at G as he tried to control the vessel. One wave even came overboard!

After one more snorkel, we were sailing into the sunset on the front deck, with music blaring, giggles, drinks and heads up. This is the life! Beno then served up a feast of nachos, Caesar salad, honey soy chicken and rocky road.

On mooring up, we were too late to get one of the public mooring spaces so G decided to give the anchor a go at holding us in place. However due to it not being able to dig its claws into the ocean bed we had to sail into the night to find a new spot.

The second spatula speech by G set the mood for the night and with an early start looming everybody drank the boat dry and hit the sack.

M & C xxxx