25th August - 1st September - Airlie Beach, The Whitsunday Island snad Airlie Beach again!

We boarded our first greyhound bus on the 25th heading south to Airlie Beach. We said goodbye to all the irish crew and greamae, Kelly, Laura and Louise untl we all meet up again in Sydney.

We loved Airlie Beach. We stayed at Beaches Backpackers and headed straight to the lagoon as the sun was out. We just relaxed the next day too and bought last bits ready for our Whitsundays sailing trip the following day.

We were booke don a party boat with a bit of sailing involved but when we checked in we were told we had been upgraded due to overbooking so we were now booked on a 3day, 2night live on boards sailing trip on the Southern Cross.

We boarded the Southern Cross along with 12 others. The southern Cross is 68ft long and was built to contest in the America's Cup representing Australia. During the America's Cup, Southern Cross beat all the other competing nations to race in the finals against the Americans at Newport Rhode Island. Today the yacht is maintained in great sialing condition sor all us to travel round the whitsundays in!

The Southern Cross was not a party boat by any stretch of the imagination but we had a brilliant 3days sailing the Whitsundays. When the wind really picked up Sam (skipper) and Josh (deckhand) managed to get the yacht on a 45 degree angle. So we spent the time perched on one side of the boat holding on for dear life before changing tack and scrambling to the other side as it tilted 45 degrees the opposite side! It was fantastic the only thing was the weather. It was off and on from the minute we got on the baost, mainly off hence the waterproofs on many of the photos, so some of the places we visited like Whitehaven beach were amazing but would probably have been a lot nicer if it had been sunny!

The 1st day we sailed for 4 hours to Dunbell Island and went snorkelling, we then sailed to Esk Island, got the dingy over and ate nachos while watching the most gorgeous sunset (gutted lef tthe camera on board!), that evening we watched the lunar eclipse from the deck of the yacht. As i said it wasn't a party boat as everyone was all tucked up inbed by 9pm! ahh bliss after escaping the big brother house!

The next day we salied over to Tongue Bay and got the dingy over to the island, we then walked uptothe lookout point over Whitehaven beach where the sand really is white. They think it may have something to do with volcanic activity in the ocean. We walked down to the beach and had little sharks swimming around us but then the heavens opened and our Whitehaven experience was cut a little short as we sheltered from the rain instead of sunbathing!

From there we visited Luncheon Bay, Blue Pearl Bay and Black Island with more snorkelling and repeatedly getting soaked in the rain. We did spot a few whales but always too far away for a pic and only fleetingly.

On our last day the sun did make an appearance, which we all needed as everything we all had brought with us was soaked through. On the sail home we raced Siska, a sister boat but didnt win, much to the other boats amusement. We did get upto 15 knots of the Southern Cross though. We would love to do the trip again, maybe when the Kearney clan come to visit in feb/march??

That night everyone met up from the boat for a few drinks before moving on to Shennigans. The rest of our time at Airlie Beach was spent shopping for much needed clothes.