After Hervey Bay we had another 13 hour coach trip ahead of us which we were not particularly looking forward too!
After another bad night's sleep we arrived in Airlie Beach which is where the Whitsunday Islands and Great Barrier Reef starts. I arrived covered in bites which we think may have come from the coach and may have been bed bugs!
We were staying at a place called Magnums which was not too bad and had lots of rooms through a rainforesty area. We had an 8 bed dorm and spoke to a few other people who had also been on a sailing trip some with good experiences and some not so good!
The next day we boarded our sailing boat called Spank Me! The name was actually what had drawn us to pick that one plus it had a lot of good reviews and recommendations from booking agents. There was 26 people on the boat which I thought were going to be too many but it actually wasn't too bad. Below deck the beds were pretty small and cramped together and it was boiling hot down there but me and Ady were lucky enough to bag ourselves a double bed with a sliding roof above us so you can sleep watching the stars or just keep a bit cooler! That afternoon we got to know to know the crew, Shaun the dive master, Ryan the deck hand and the captain John and the most important person Ange the cook! We had a meeting about safety etc then sailed out to the outer Barrier Reef where we docked for the evening. We had a delicious evening meal of Spaghetti Bolognese again but this time with garlic bread then we started drinking yet another box of Aussie special goon whilst watching shooting stars across the sky!
The next day we carried on sailing and lots of us were not feeling the best. The water was really choppy and it doesn't help when you have drunk a fair few glasses of red wine! After the sea sickness started to go away everyone got the chance to steer the boat and work the grinders which was a good experience. We then anchored at the barrier reef where everyone that was a qualified diver got a free 20 minute dive. Me and Ryan were in the first group and had a good dive where we saw some great big fish including parrot fish and massive wrasse and some small sharks. For anyone that wasn't qualified they got to do an introductory to diving dive which taught them some skills and got them used to the breathing etc which is what Sarah did and she loved it. We then went to another area of the reef were we again got to go in the water and we went snorkelling. It turned out to be the best snorkelling that I've ever done. Me and another girl ended up together in the water snorkelling and we saw a massive moray eel which looked pretty scary, then we saw a lovely big turtle passing by, a big white tip shark and finally a big stingray! We thought no one would believe us back on the boat as we had seen so much but I had photo evidence!!!
That night we stayed off the alcohol and enjoyed our evening meal which was Thai green curry then stayed on the deck and got to know everyone that was on our trip.
On the third day we sailed to the Whitsundays Islands and Whitehaven beach. We got dropped off on the island and had to do a bit of a walk to get to a lookout point. When we got there we couldn't believe how amazing the view was. The sea was clear blue and the sand pure white it looked like paradise. We could also see lots of stingrays through the water which was exciting. We walked back to where we got dropped off and carried on to get to the lovely white beach we had just seen. We had to wear wet suits in the water to protect ourselves from Jellyfish as it's now the season for stingers as they call it and some of them can be deadly!
We went in the water and had stingrays swimming leisurely past us which we got a few photos off then we sat on the beach and exfoliated ourselves with the pure white sand as it's supposed to be great for the skin. After a few hours it was time to get back to the boat and off to another good snorkelling area. At the next swimming area we all went for a snorkel and the coral was just amazing! There's so much of it and there were some great colourful fish and coral so we stayed there for another hour or so before anchoring down for the night a few hours later.
The next day was our last one and we were told we were basically just going to be sailing back to the port and not doing any snorkelling or diving. They asked for volunteers again for the grinders so me and Sarah decided to volunteer. The grinders are used to help put up the sails and you have to really work your arms fast to turn the grinders. Me and Sarah had are bikinis on whilst we were doing this except Sarah's was a strapless one that hooked together at the back. We started on the grinders and halfway through were told to go faster which we did but as we started to go faster Sarah whole bikini top just pinged right off on to the floor!!! Bless her she didn't know what to do she had to quickly cover herself up whilst picking up her top at the same time, then ended up hitting her head hard on the grinder which was still spinning round! She was okay just very embarrassed as the whole boat had been watching us too! I think everyone thought ahh two blondes something's bound to happen here! Sarah has a big bump on her head to remember it by though!
We arrived back at Airlie beach a few hours later and were glad to get some proper bottled water as the boats supply tasted awful and we couldn't bear to drink anymore of it! We stayed one more night at magnums then left the following day for Mission Beach further up the coast.