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THURSDAY
By now Georgie and I both feel a lot more at home on the boat and in charge of steering it. I've had a fair bit of practise behind the wheel by now, including sailing back to the marina at 18knots! I've even begun to think of the boat as a little home, and talking to Pete it's very tempting to think of owning a nice boat in the future! (the picture above is the boat we were on) and I'm quite used to living in small compartments since most of our time is spent outdoors, where it is seriously sunny!
After sailing past Hamilton Island(where we saw where George Harrison used to meditate) and an island shaped like a gorilla's head we arrived at Whitehaven beach. It has to be the nicest beach in the world! The sand is incredibly fine and white, and to top it off there are lots of turtles swimming and breeding in the sea nearby so I spent most of lunchtime spotting them coming up to breathe! In the afternoon we went to a great spot for snorkelling; visibility hasn't been great because of some poor weather before I arrived but this place was really good with lots of parrot fish and some larger purple fish. If you listen underwater you can hear a ticking noise as they all try to bite off bits of coral, and there were even more species here than up in Cairns. We saw one of the best sunsets and then stargazed up on the front of the bow for shooting stars, and we even saw a meteor coming down.
FRIDAY
Today was the last time to change over passengers and crew, and Matty and Zack both came back on board. The food has got a bit repetitive since it's always the same menu repeated each trip, but it's nothing compared to the number of times the main staff have seen lasagne! Before setting out again we got to have a quick look around one of the maxi boats, which looks like a big floating dorm below deck and the luxury couples boat "On Location" - a job cooking on that boat would be sweet! Even the crew's quarters are pretty delux and each has their own plasma tv and bathroom.
Georgie and I tried to impress Matty with our new skills - we are now good at tying all the relevant knots and getting the boat ready to sail. The passengers were different again, although there were still more Irish?! including one girl who loved celery with peanut butter...but the funniest moment was when one of the American students asked in the evening "So dude, are we just like floating here?" duh!
SATURDAY
A pretty intense day of learning because I had to leave to boat in the afternoon, but fun nonetheless speeding around in the little dinghy boat. It was nothing compared to the dive boat that took me back though - 33knots for 45mins all the way back into the harbour! No wonder they called it 'Tornado'...
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