Well after a relaxing couple of days it was back on the greyhound bus en-route to Airlie beach. We only stayed here one night before we were due to head off on the high seas on our Whitsundays adventure and what an adventure it was!!

Firstly we were met by Lisa who explained that she was the host and cook for our boat (the southern cross) and that the only other crew member on the boat would be the captain, John, meaning that all of us would have to help with the sails etc on the boat! Which turned out to be great fun, although I only helped winch the sails once ( as this was far too much like hard work, best left up to the boys in my opinion!!)

The boat was very small (nothing like the yachts we are all used to!) as it used to be a racing boat. The inside was all open plan and very cramped but to be honest the only time we ever went below was to sleep and even I didn't do that the first night, instead I slept on the deck as it was much cooler (it didnt help that someone had sprayed bug spray and I nearly choked to death!) However it wasn't all fun and games sleeping up on deck as I woke up soaking because it rained haha!!

The first day was mostly taken up by sailing to the Whitsunday islands, but this made lots of time for sunbathing on deck and getting to take some pictures of the amazing scenery! That night, when we had found a spot for mooring, Lee and I sat and watched the most amazing sunset (we have the pics to prove it!!) and then every star in the sky came out! We have never seen anything like it, they were so clear, then we watched the moon rising!! AMAZING!

The next morning we made our way ashore to trek to the famous Whitehaven Beach (the one thats on all the postcards!) Where the sand is actually silicone and it is so fine you can polish the face of watches to get the scratches out, it is that fine!! There we went swimming with baby sharks and baby stingrays as this is where they stay until they are big enough to go out into the ocean. Its amazing how close we got to them!!

We went snorkelling the second day at a spot called Mantaray Bay, where we fed huge fish and there were so many of them that one of the little zebra fish actually bumped into my snorkel mask! haha Check out the pictures and we also have some video clips of them to put up (this is lee's area so we could be waiting a while as I am still waiting on him putting up the ones of the full moon party in Thailand!!)

The rest of the trip was more sightseeing but you can look at all the pictures and they speak for themselves. However, we were very lucky, as you will see there are a few pictures of ships washed up on the rocks, these were only wrecked the week before we got there. There was the worst storm and 48 boats in total were shipwrecked in one night!! The one in the photos was a boat the same as ours, carrying mostly backpackers who had to be airlifted off the boat!! We got amazing weather for it and got really good tans, which have now faded

xx