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Pete and Lou's Big Adventure
Hi All,
We arrived in Airlie BEach at 6.20am after a 10 hour bus journey through the night from Agnes Water / Town of 1770!! What a killer!! While Pete tried to sleep in every possible position you can think of, I was awake most of the night!!
That day we walked around Airlie to get our bearings and although we were half asleep most of the time we were quite impressed by how pretty this place was!! We went to the lagoon which is where everyone swims as you cant really go in the sea because of the stingers!! Apart from that we got ready for our 3 day 2 night trip on the Whitsundays that was booked for the following day. This included purchasing a large amount of alcohol, packing a carrier back full of the bear essentials, making ourselves body beautiful and of course an early night.
I hate to admit it but I was quite nervous about this trip - 1 in Airlie we couldn't find anything about our boat so I had visions of a paddle boat with oars greeting us at the Marina and 2 both me and Pete suffer from sea-sickness....so why the hell were we doing this anyway.
We got to Abel Point Marina an hour early so spent the time trying to find our boat and trying to work out who from the people milling around who was going to be on our non-exsistent boat. All of a sudden the guy named Peter shouted "all those for Habibi" as it turns out this our boat and Pete was a deck hand. After checking in, we made our way to Habibi and met the skipper, fellow passengers and the rest of the crew who were all great!! We set sail and for the rest of the day got to know everybody, lazed in the sun, took in the lush surroundings of the ocean and the tropical islands and got used to the gentle bobbing of our 80 foot yacht. That night we had the best dinner, played the funniest drinking games and generally just chilled out and relaxed under the stars.
On the second day we were woken at 7 by the breakfast bell. Everyone somehow dragged themselves from their bunks to the deck to soak up the drink consumed the night before. After brekkie we made our wat to Whitehaven beach - aboslutely breathtaking!! We swam in the crystal water and saw sharks, turtles, sting-rays and dolphins. We were all blessed with the compulsary stinger suit which we had to wear to go into water being the Great Barrier reef there is more stingers than normal. Although unflattering, we all laughed as each of us struggled to get the thing on and then off again. After lunch we headed to out first snorkelling destination. We jumped off the boat with our fins, stinger suits, masks and snorkels all intact. It was amazing. The coral was mind-blowing - its a whole different world and the fish so beautiful. As we moored the boat at our second destination a few people were put off by the amount of jelly fish in the water, but again, me, Pete and a few others were in the water trying not to think about it!! This time the crew got in their raft and scattered bits of bread in the water. Thousands of brightly coloured fish emerged from the coral - WOW!! Pete fed the fish under the water while I tried to take a picture, which was pretty cool. That night we had a fab bbq and again played drinking games, this night wasn't as late as the first as everyone was pretty tired!! That night Pete and I slept on deck, under the stars!!
On our final day we woke early as it began to rain and I felt like my blood was boiling. I had been bitten - no EATEN alive!! As a spent the morning counting the amount of bites I had Habibi sailed back to the marina. This truly was a fantastic trip - great sites, beautiful views, fantastic snorkelling, amazing beach, lovely people, scrumptious food and best of all no sea-sickness!! We will definately be visiting the Great Barrier Reef again
When we got back to Airlie we were tired and smelly but generally on a high!! As I have had an allergic reaction to the bites we arent doing much today except laze around in the hostel. Tomorrow we head to Townsville and Magnetic Island.
Til next time...
Lou and Pete. x
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