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G'day Guys!
Saturday 7th April, we checked into our Pacific Star sailng trip at 6:30pm, and were soon led onto the catamaran by the 2 Tom's, our dive instructors. We were introduced to Shane, our skipper, and Hayley, our boat mom. We soon sailed out of the harbour, under a blanket of stars, to our first destination - a passage between Hook Island and Whitsunday Island, the 2 largest of the 74 islands. Shane assured us we'd get a good night's sleep here.
We were awoke by the engines starting at 6:15am, and due to the immediate feeling of sea sickness we were up on deck within 2 minutes. The sun was shining, but the sea was pretty rough, and as we sailed for 2 1/2 hours, not many people managed brekfast. We moored in Tongue Bay, and trekked across Whitsunday Island, to a lookout point that overlooked Whitehaven Beach. The view was breathtaking. The pure white sand is 99% silica, and the crysal clear waters swirl across the beach forming torquise blue pools and streams. We spent a few hours down on the beach before returning to Pacific Star and sailing to one of Hook Island's beautiful bays. Here we had the chance to snorkell or scuba, unfortunately Emma still had a cold, so we decided to snorkell. As soon as we stepped off the boat, we were surrounded by Bat Fish - HUGE!! We spent most of the afternoon in the water looking at the amazing corals and loads of fish.
After a long day we decided to use our 60 second shower time to freshen up. We then sailed onto Southern Pass for our second night's stop. Here we enjoyed a lovely roast beef dinner and relaxed with a few beers.
Up at 5:30am, Monday morning, we were off to the Outer Reef! We were warned that the sea would be rough, with up to 4 metre waves, so decided to face it head on at the front of the boat. By the time we arrived at Bait Reef (3 hours later) we were soaked, but had cured our sea sickness. Not long after we arrived Emma was given bread to throw into the sea, attracting thousands of massive fish, including the most famous fish on this reef, Albert, a giant Napolean Wrasse. He is a huge green fish with massive blue lips, (as caught on camera by Emma).
Tom dropped us over to the reef in the dingy, where we spent time battling the strong current, to see the amazing sights that Bait Reef had to offer. We returned to the boat for lunch and were warned that the weather had got even worse, so we put on wetsuits and headed up to the front for the return journey. 2 hours into the journey we were hit by a massive gust of wind, which shredded 2 of our 3 sails. After this mini disaster our engines slowly took us into Blue Pear Bay for our overnight stop. After dinner, as the skipper and Hayley went for a night dive, the drinking games began.
Tuesday morning, we stayed in Blue Pearl Bay, otherwise known as "the fish pool" due to the mass amount of fish here. We spent the morning snorkelling in the bay, looking at the millions and millions of fish above the beautiful coral reef. We even did some lazy snorkelling, as we were towed around the bay by Tom in the dingy. After lunch we sailed back to Abel Point Marina, in Airlie Beach, where we finally returned to dry land.
Lots of Love,
Lee and Emma
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