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Whitsunday Sailing!
We arrived at the marina around 7 not knowing what to expect, every other traveler we had met was going on the clipper, the other boat we had been recomended, so we thought are boat was going to be full of rich old aussies (as our boat was the most expensive.) When we got there we found this was not the case and most of them were around our age, well marcusś age actually (26) and a couple of them were from marcusś home town of lemington spa the first people he met from there. So enogh rambling, we got on the boat and one of the first crew members i saw happened to be my old srufing instructor, he got fed up with the surf camp and come up the coast to the reef, unfortunatly he didnt tell the surf camp this! So we got on the boat, got our wetsuits (they didn tell us we had to pay extra for them) and they told us about what was going to happen on the trip. They then showed us to our rooms, and boy were they small! Rob and I were shocked to discover that we would have to share a double as marcus had already shotgunned the top bunk. Not only that the shower and toilet were both in the same cupboard. In the end it didn make much difference as we spent most of the time in the water or on deck so it was fine. That night i was absolutly shattered due to traveling and excessive alcohol so when the guy was giving us a talk on the reef I unfortunatly fell asleep which was very embarassing. After the talk i went straight to bed and woke up the next day at Whithaven beach!
I clambered out of the hatch in our room, up onto deck and saw the glisten sands of whithaven beach and it was awesome, a little bit cloudy but still awesome! We had a bit of brekie and then headed straight over for some beach vollyball and rounders. We had a couple of Brits V. all volly ball matches, which of course we won, and a game of rounders, which noone really knew the rules to so we just made up the rules in our favour. After whitehaven we set sail for luncheon bay for some lunch, surprisingly, and to do some snorkeling and our first dive. The snorkeling was very simmilar to when we had been to blue pearl on hayman but i did see a sting ray which was amazing. The diving there was wicked, me and rob both did it marcus had had a bit of a scare whilst swimming so opted out, he took us down through the reef so we were diving through these caverens created by the plateus of reef. It was like a completely different world, very cliched i know but true. We spent the night at luncheon, watching the sun go down over the islands, and played some drinking games on deck which was preety cool. Overnight we traveled out to the bait reef, on the outer reef, one of the best spots to go diving acording to our skipper. It was very sureal to wake up in the middle of the ocean with absolutly nothing around you. We got up and went straight in for some snorkeling. This was easily the best snorkeling Ie ever done, unlike cruise whit we were able to snorkel right over the top of the reef, so we could see all the bright coral and all the fish feeding off of it, the colours were spectacular. The current on the reef was very strong and i was constantly dragged off the reef and over the vast canyons inbetween the reef´s, it was very scary looking down and seeing nothing! I aslo saw my first turtle here, sleeping inbetween the coral. After the snorkeling we went straight into the diving, me and rob both went again, and he took us down in between the tables of reef. It was amazing swimming past wals of coral with loads of fish everywhere, our guide (Pat) even picked up a starfish and we played catch with it, whcih was so sureal. I was famished after our dive so lunch was definatly needed, we had sandwiches up on deck in the sun. After lunch we moved to 2 different reefs, hook and line where the meet forms a massive river like chanel called, you guessed it the river, ( Aussie naming is very simple) Here we did a drif dive, which is were you let the current take you and you just look at all the coral. It was amazing the drop below us was 60m+ and we just floated along and looked at the sheer wall of coral pat showed us lots of see grass and we saw some amzing bait fish all swimming down the reef like a waterfall of fish. Rob had to come up early on this dive because he ran out of air so was a bit dissapointed but it was still awesome. That evening i was persuaded to do a night dive, i´d always kinda wanted to just to freak myself out but didn't think id be able to cause im not certified. Pat took a group of us un certs down to what they call the lagoon back on bait reef and we just relied on the full moon for light (well and some tourches just in case.) It was deffinnatly one of the scariest things ive done in my life and even though we didn't see much it was still an amazing experience. One of the guys who had a waterproof camera took a picture with the flash on a we' all absolutly stacked it when this flash of light went off even pat didn't know what was going on and had a right go at the guy for it. Once out of the water i was absolutly freezing and rushed straight into the shower, we had a bit of a quite one that night just watching ali G, classic!
On our final day we went back to the islands and blue pearl bay on hayman. It was very weird going back there and it felt like we should get one of the drop off boats t come pick us up. Unfortunatly there was noone there from hayman i guess it was the time of day, but we had a good snokel and saw a big mauri rass there which is the first time i'd seen one around the islands. After blue pearl we set sail for Airlie Beach, it was time to go home. When we arrived back in Airlie we went out for the "after party", it was awesome, even though i was suffering from land sickness! We bumped into xxxx from the shabby house, which was deffinatly the randomest reunion hed been working on the boats for three months and had saved up a lot of money and had his own apartment there we were very jelous. After another legendary night in Airlie we retired to prepare for the next leg...
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