Hello!

We have just arrived back into Airle Beach after a fun filled,two day sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands. It is very nice to be back on dry land and not fall over whilst walking!

The trip was fantastic though. We sailed in a Maxi racing yacht so we soon realised we couldn't just sit, read and sunbathe for two days. We did quite a bit of proper sailing where the boat was virtually tipped up on its side against the wind. After not daring to move at first though me and Lynds soon flexed our muscle and got involved with a bit of the sailing. It was quite cool to think you were sailing an actuialy racing yacht around the Whitsunday islands (although how much we were actually contributing Im not too sure!)

After spending the first afternoon sailing we anchored close by to Whitehaven Beach ready to go there the following morning. We then had a very nice sunset BBQ on the boat and drank some goon(wine) before climbing into our little (cosy!) bunks and being rocked to sleep. I think this is where a few of us soon realised we get sea sick however! I was very glad of the travel sick tablets I bought half an hour before getting on the boat!

I was hoping to get up at 5 the following morning to see the sunset but this did not happen. We were all up bright and early though (to the annoyance of the crew) and spent the morning on Whitehaven beach. This was so beautiful and you can see why it is one fo the top 6 beaches in the world. As we were up so early we were the first on the beach aswell which made it even better. It was so peaceful and relaxing. The sand was so white as it is about 95% silica sand. It is a bit like a salt scrub so we got a bit of a free skin treatment too!

The most exciting/scary part was when someone came back from walking on the beach saying they had seen a shark a bit further up the beach. Despite this being my biggest fear I was so excited and ran over with my camera. Now, as we got nearer we realised that it wasn't some sort of Great White shark but a little Lemon Shark swimming near the shore. However, it was still about one metre long and pretty impressive to see. I paddled in the water to get a bit closer but decided it still looked like it could probably take a hand if it wanted too and kept back on the sand!

After having a very tasty lunch (the food was amazing!) we went to a bay off Hook Island to do some snorkelling. I was a bit nervous as this is never something I've wanted to do but I did think what better place to try than the Great Barrier reef. We got into our sexy Stinger Suits and went out into the water ( not backwards as he wanted us to!) And actually as soon as we got into the water, I forgot why I was so scared. Well, maybe I did keep checking behind me to look for sharks but thats really just common sense! It was just so amazing to swim right between all the colouful fish. I was shocked at how close they came, they're just not bothered about you swimming right throught them. Unfortunately we didn't find Nemo but we did see lots of his friends. We saw lots of Dorys!!

We spent the final part of the day on a little sand Island watching the sunset before our last rocky nights sleep on the boat!

xxxxxx