We got into Airlie Beach at 7am after our 14 hour bus journey and were surprised but pleased to be able to check into our room immediately. We went straight to bed until lunchtime then got up to look around town and have a swim in the manmade lagoon. Swimming in the sea without a stinger suit is not allowed here as there are lots of jelly fish so the only swimming you CAN do is in the lagoon or pools. It's a bit tame but you can see why.

The next day we trekked across town to the marina and boarded our home for the next two nights: The Atlantic Clipper. We were pretty impressed by the boat; it had a diving board, a slide, a hot tub and hot pressurised showers. Plus, even though most people were sharing their rooms with others, Jak and I had our own little cabin with bunk beds and a miniature porthole high up on the wall so that we could look out to sea.

Our first afternoon was fairly relaxed; the crew dropped the anchor after a couple of hours of sailing and everyone was given the chance to don a stinger suit and dive or slide off the boat as the sun went down. There were some good dives but the (many) belly flops got the greatest applause from everyone onboard. It seems we're all sadists at heart.

After being fed and watered everyone got into teams of around 8 or so (there were about 50 people onboard) and we played a few games. Jak ended up having to eat a whole orange, peel and all, as well as having to lick a huge dollop of marmite out of my belly button. He was the quickest one on the boat to do both, although he did look like he wanted to throw up by the end of it. The final round involved each group acting out a scenario given to us by the crew. Ours was 'dying from ugliness' and again Jak drew the short straw and had to be the man suffering from a serious case of the uglies mwahaha. Somehow, our team ended up as overall winners of the games and we each won a free didgeridoo lesson whoop whoop. Afterwards everyone sat around drinking and chatting and around midnight a shout went up - several dolphins were playing alongside the boat, perhaps attracted by the lights and music. The dolphins must have been hungry as for over half an hour they were chasing fish out of the water and swallowing them as they fell back down. Clever, but bloody.

We were woken up at 6.30am the next morning and after breakfast set sail for Whitehaven Beach. The sand there is the finest in the world and so white that it feels and looks like you're walking on flour. Apparently it was used to make the glass for the Hubble Telescope and is so special that there are fines of $3000 for removing the sand from the beach without permission (and you wouldn't get permission unless you were NASA or similar!) After we'd had our fill of oohing and ahhing over the pretty sand and swimming about in our snazzy black stinger suits we headed back to the boat for lunch.

After lunch we were taken to another beach that we used as a base whilst we spent the next hour or so snorkelling across some of the outer Great Barrier Reef. It was pretty amazing. The coral was more colourful and varied than in Fiji and there were also a lot more fish. At one point hundreds of blue fish with bright yellow tails swam past me, just an inch or two from my face. At another I saw a Humphead Maori Wrasse that was literally half the size of a fully grown man. I looked it up when i got back to the boat and apparently they can grow to up to two metres long :-O

Whilst we were there Jak also did an introductory scuba dive, slightly further out to sea. He almost didn't do it as he felt so seasick that morning but luckily he did as he saw a turtle and swam through a coral tunnel and came up smiling from ear to ear. He has the taste for it now and wants to do it again in Cairns and maybe in Asia.

Once back on the boat we jumped into the hot tub, poured in some bubbles and relaxed with a nice cold drink. That night the dolphins appeared again; two of them this time. About a minute after they killed their first fish a reef shark waltzed into view followed by another, and another, and another...and before we knew it there were seven little sharks circling the boat eating the dolphins' leftovers. Even though they were harmless sharks it was a little disconcerting to know that they were 'out there' as we zipped up our stinger suits and strapped on our snorkel gear this morning. This time we snorkelled off of Blue Pearl Beach - in the same spot that the six star resort around the corner sends its guests! We saw jellyfish in the water, little square ones with orange bits on their sides. They stung quite a few people but it didn't hurt too much and the tingling went down after 30 minutes or so they obviously weren't dangerous.

After snorkelling we headed back to the mainland (boo, we wanted to stay on the boat!) and trekked back across town to our hostel for some much needed rest before tonight's afterparty.