On Sunday I set sail on a boat called Habibi, to do a backpacker tour of the Whitsunday Islands. I think there were about 25 passengers on board, and three crew - a cook, a deckhand and a skipper. We spent most of Sunday sailing out to the islands, and spent the night rocking and rolling on the choppy ocean - I didn't sleep very well as I had to keep waking up and hang on to things so I didn't fall out of bed! The bunks were small and my bunk was so close to the ceiling that when I woke up and looked up I felt like I was sleeping in a coffin! Urgh.

On Monday, our only full day out there, we were dropped off on Whitehaven Beach at about 7.30am, and as soon as we stepped foot on the shore it started raining! The rain didn't last long though, and then we had a couple of hours to spend on the beach. The sand is so white that I couldn't look at it without sunglasses, even when the sun was behind one of several big black clouds. It's so fine as well - finer that caster sugar and so soft. It was just as beautiful as everyone says it is, even if it was grey and cloudy at times.

In the afternoon we went to two snorkelling sites, as we were still on the Great Barrier Reef. Both sites were shallow and therefore I could get a lot closer to them than when I went snorkelling with Pro Dive. I loved that I was able to identify many different species of fish from my scuba diving course, and I saw a lot of clams, that would close up whenever I swam by.

The second site we swam at was Langford Reef. This was incredible not only because it shares its name with me, my uncle and Matthew Perry, but also because I saw a turtle! I'd just got out of the reef because I saw a big long spikey fish I didn't want to get to close to, when one of the girls started yelling that she'd seen a turtle. I swam out to see Katie, a girl who was near it, and started looking for it. When I first saw it I got such a shock because it was a lot bigger than I expected. It was just over a metre from head to foot I think, and was so graceful and peaceful. We swam alongside it for a while and it was going at about the same pace as we were snorkelling at. It was beautiful and I still can't believe it happened. It totally makes up for not having seen one when I was scuba diving.

We came back to land yesterday and this time I was not swaying at all, which is good! Tonight (Wednesday evening) I am getting the overnight Greyhound to Hervey Bay, where I am going to go whalewatching. Then on Saturday I am going to Rainbow Beach to do a three-day tour of Fraser Island.