OK, airlie beach was a wonderful place, it was just so laid back that it was relaxing to walk around. anyway we decided that we were going to do some sailing on the Whitsudays, which involved finding a boat. this was a hard task, especially when your in Airlie Beach. we chose the "Spank Me" boat seeing as it looked quite quick and you were guarenteed to sail atleast once.

we had a couple of nights at our hostel and waited for our boat to arrive. meanwhile we wern't alowed in the sea becasue there were little jellyfish that could kill you so Airlie Beach council had built an outdoor swimming pool with sand and a bridge. so we spent lots of timew there reading our books and swimming. and then along comes the welsh girls we met in Cape Tribulation. so we ended up going to meet them one night up at a spanish bar. and when we got there it was so empty we thought it was closed apart from the one barmaid behind the counter.

anyway the next day we were on our way to the Spank Me. with our 2 boxes of goon (cheap wine made with fish) and our vodka mixes. we ended up boarding the boat with about 22 other people, to be honest i thought that it was for two boats. so god knows how we managed to fit all those people on there.

the first day at sea we had the sails up and were heading out to the whitsundays. when we came across an island that we were told was called sid island. this is becasue captin Cook that discovered them fired his dog to sea after he died, so he loaded him into a canno and fired him out to sea. but it was slightly off course and sid ended up hitting the island, which is now called sid island.

Anyway along comes the first night, so all 22 of us obviously don't know each other yet, so we all settle down for the food and start drinking. It was lovely food, the chef was basically cooking in the space the size of a cupboard, I don't know how she pulled that one off. The sunset was amazing, setting over the top of an island. Everyone went to bed a bit too early for my liking, it was probably about 10 o'clock and they had already gone. Me, Josh and a few others stayed up, it was really hot at night, it must have been pushing 20°C and about 25°C below deck.
After everyone went to bed, three of us decided to sleep up on deck as it was way too hot to even step below deck. Some people were ok, they had the fans pointed at them and me and Josh were on the far end of the ship, where there wasn't a fan. It was an outrage, but it was nice to sleep under the stars without any mosquitoes around!
In the morning we were woken up by Murray our skipper, he was quite excited to see a group of turtles swimming in the distance. (Even though he'd seen turtles nearly every day.) so without hesitation he dives overboard and swims straight over to them, only to be slowed down by the clothes he didn't take off. When he gets back on board we all ask him what he saw, to the response: " I dunno mate, I dint take ma mask!"
After breakfast we set off to Whitehaven beach. We set off at about 6am to miss the other boats and crowds. Whitehaven beach is a beach that contains 95% silicone and its so fine that you can use it to exfoliate and NASA have got special permission to remove 1 Ton a year to make high quality glass for their satellite cameras. After playing around on the beach we headed up to the lookout point, which is on top of the island. And is only accessible by hiking about 20-30mins through dense woodland. It was a terrible climb, just covered in mozzies all the way up we had to walk in a line all the way up, just so the person behind could kill the little b******s for you if they landed on your back.
After seeing the spectacular sights, we started to walk back down the hill, and everyone was going a bit too slow for me so I set off by myself. After about 10 minutes solitary walking I come across a lizard that must be about 1 meter long. I wait for the second mate to catch me up and it works out that these lizards are only native to the island and I was lucky to see one on Whitehaven beach.
We got back onto the beach, where everyone had to get into their stinger suits (protects you from jellyfish) then we all went for a morning swim. We arrived back at the boat at midday and had our dinner while Murray took us to another location (Bait Reef), where we could do some diving.
We had to dive in our stinger suits as well in case any were underwater. Everyone got a free dive even if you didn't have your PADDY. But seeing as me and Josh did we were ok to go diving with another two people. While we were diving we saw 3 reef sharks, there were two white tips and one black tip. We also did two swim throughs, which involves swimming through arch's.
That night I think we had the best sunset I have ever seen. There was a massive orange sun setting on the blue horizon, then about 20 minutes the moon came up. This was also huge, and very red. So we drank some more wine and had another night on top of the deck,
The next morning we woke up and had breakfast then set off at 5am for another location. This was where we were going to do some current snorkelling. Which involves walking about 1km up the beach then the current drags you down towards the boat. Once we got in, it was quite murky but ok to see about 5 meters. We set off and about 5-10 minutes later we saw two turtles eating a jellyfish. So we all swam over to them and its surprising how large they really are, they were grabbing the jelly fish between them and with their fins they chopped it until chunks came off. It was brilliant to watch, and they weren't intimidated at all. After watching the turtles eating their breakfast we headed back to the boat. Only to find another two reef sharks swimming around. So I watched them for a while and they went too deep to see, so I started swimming back to the boat, with my head under the water. And I saw only what I thought was a barracuda, it was a massive thing, with huge teeth and swam way too fast for my liking. I later found out that they were Piperfish and were harmless.
That afternoon we sailed for about 4 hours to get to a site where the most expensive hotel in the world is. On the same bay, a boat that wasn't very lucky crashed on the rocks and it was just snapped in half over one huge boulder. And left 20+ tourists floating around in shark infested waters for 6 hours. Sounds great! (I wonder if they got their money back?!)
Another hot sweaty night later we headed back to Airlie Beach where we had started. Murray couldn't be bothered to sail so he let me sail it for a good 20-30 minutes, and I think it was one of my best experiences I had. It was so powerful it was hard to fight against the pull of the sails. And the wind kept making the boat turn right. So all the time you're trying to find a good wind channel and keep it going straight, its more difficult than I thought.
After we returned to Airlie Beach we went to book our room for the night, and we basically spent all night in the lagoon, sunbathing and swimming. Only to meet the bloody welsh again, only this time it would be the last.