Whitsunday Islands

July 4 – White Haven Beach and the Whitsundys

The engines woke everyone up around 6am this morning but we put off getting up until the breakfast bell rang at 7am. Breakfast consisted of white bread and cereal but sadly no peanut butter for the toast. A bit disappointing but I guess it's easy for the crew. We were motoring towards White Haven Beach and arrived around 8am. As our skipper Matt says everything's takes about 2hrs to get to. We were load into the tenders (or dingys) and driven to the beach. It was pretty windy out and, since it was still early, fairly cool. We went for a walk up to look out and were rewarded with a great view overlooking the Whitsundays. One our way back down to the beach we spotted some green ants that one of the crew had told us about. Apparently if you lick their bums you'll taste a very strong citrus flavour. Two of the girls decided to try this and confirmed it was true. Back down on the beach Beau and I went for a nice walk along the beach. When we made our way back to where the group was they were playing baseball. Beau joined in and I observed. Beau made a dive for the ball one time and ended up water for his efforts. After the game broke up a soccer game got started and I actually joined in. It was a lot of fun but we had churned up the sand so much it made running difficult. We all got together for a big group shot before heading back to the boat. We had sandwiches for lunch and then put the wind to good use and sailed around to Mantaray Bay. True to it's name we saw a mantaray as we were being shuttled in on the tender. He was just gliding along right at the surface and the tips of his wings were breaking through. The dive instructors were doing everyone's free “scuba experience” which was a brief introductory dive to show people what diving can be like. For those of us who were certified we would get a little bit of a refresher. Beau and I went for a snorkel for a little bit and saw some fishes but not another mantaray. We snorkeled for a bit before trying to warm up on the beach. Beau decided to go for another snorkel while I struggled to warm up. Every time I got close the wind would whip up and cool me down again. When we finally did get to go for our dive we were in with a couple other people. We didn't really do much for a refresher just went over the hand signals. We got to go for a short dive and fed some fish. Once back on the boat I had my 1 minute shower and got desalted. I spent some time before dinner chatting with Rachel who's the trial run photographer on the trip. She's taking marketing pictures for the boat and since this her first time out it's a trial run for her and the owner. She was crocheting so we got talking about crafting and such. She's been making beanies and selling them as she goes, not a bad idea. It was nice talking with some one who's like minded about crafting. She's also American. Dinner was much better than lunch with roasted chicken, potatoes, and veges. We had eaten up on deck and I took our plates down. When I came back up everyone was looking over the side of the boat, there were dolphins. We ended up seeing 4 dolphins, I can't be sure what kind they were but probably bottle nosed. There was a game of charades going on down below but we hung out on deck talking with the skipper and some other people before bed.

Overlooking the Whitsundays

The Anaconda 3

White Haven Beach

Hoisting the sails

Sunset

July 5 – Diving the Whitsundays

We awoke to disappointing news, the seas were too rough so we wouldn't be headed to the Reef. Boo thwarted again in our attempt to go to the GBR. Instead we went to Maureen Bay. We had a dive briefing with Chase and told him we would probably go diving twice so which two would he suggest. He said here and Blue Pearl Bay. So we took his word for it and decided to go for a dive here. It was just the two of us who were going so the photographer, Rachel, joined us. We were double wet suited with our 3/2mm stinger suit and then a 3mm shorty over top. The water is only 21 deg. We were dropped out at the reef and rolled off the tender into the water. Unfortunately the visibility was pretty poor, only 3m, and the sun had disappeared behind a cloud. The vis had cleared up some by the end of the dive and the sun had come back out so we were able to enjoy the colours more. It definitely wasn't the greatest dive and it was pretty chilly but it was nice to go for a real dive again. Back on board we got warmed up and had tacos for lunch. The skipper made a small change of plans again and decided we would go to Blue Pearl Bay this afternoon instead of tomorrow. When we arrived at the bay we were still feeling pretty full from lunch so we put off heading out to the reef for about 30min. We got suited up and dropped into the icy water. The visibility was much better here and there were lots of fish to see. We started the dive by feeding some fish. They went nuts and were all around us. We continued onwards and got to do some swim throughs, we went through gaps between two big chunks of coral. It was pretty cool. We saw some bat fish, butterfly fish, a lizard fish, and a massive wrasse. It was a much better dive than the first one. We got picked up by the tender and headed back to the boat. We had the option of going out to the beach and doing some snorkeling. We opted to stay on the boat and warm up again. I helped the one cook peel a large pot of potatoes and we chatted away for a bit. She's from California. Normally the boat would overnight in the bay and this is where the night dive would occur but the winds hadn't calmed down so we head back to the sheltered Hook's Cove. After a late dinner, I think we had to wait for the fish to be delivered, the two crew girls organized us to play “The Best Game Ever.” We had to split ourselves up into teams and come up with team names. The game was to see which team had the best ______. For example the best moustache, best ninja move, best original dance move etc. You had to pick one person to represent your team and they would show their stuff. It was hilarious! Our team ended up coming second by only one point. We were pretty worn out by the time the game finished and headed to bed.

Blue Pearl Bay

July 6 – Land Ho!

Beau and I had an awful sleep last night. It was much warmer last night so we had our hatch open but, since it was pretty windy, every time there was a gust our door would squeak against the latch then slam shut. So we enjoyed squeeeeeak bang all night. We had another boring breakfast of toast before the engines were fired up to take us over to the Sandy Cay. It was a relatively late start but we didn't have very far to go. It was very windy this morning and we were dropped off at a sandbar that had some reef surrounding it. Chase asked if we wanted to go diving again but we decided just to snorkel. The snorkeling was pretty good though. The tender dropped us up stream from the main beach so we could just float with the current There were lots of fishes around but we had left the camera on the beach. The coral was also very nice too. I got cold pretty quick though. We floated back to the main beach and I quickly got out of the water. Beau was more leisurely about it then grabbed the camera and went back in for awhile. I wrapped myself up in my towel and sarong and tired to warm up in the sun. A couple of people got lucky and saw a turtle while snorkeling. The dive guys said sometimes passengers see them here. Beau finished up his snorkel and we caught a tender back to the boat. We had some lunch and then set sail for Airlie Beach. They hoisted the main sail and the head sail so we legitimately sailed most of the way back. There was a large open area between the mainland and the island and the sea was very rough. There were some big waves that splashed us up on deck. It was difficult to find a spot with some shelter from the wind as well as safe for the water spray. We got back to the harbour and were unloaded around 2:00pm. Beau and I returned our wet suits then headed into town. We grabbed some Subway then headed to McD's for internet. Along the way we got sidetracked into a store selling opals and didgeridoos. They apparently had on the best sales they have ever had before and you could get a small, about 3ft, didgeridoo custom painted, shipped internationally and a free boomerang for $350. It seemed like a really cool idea but it's a little out of our budget. After checking our e-mail we headed to the caravan park we stayed in before and checked in. We both had nice, long, hot showers before having a little nap. Some people for the boat were meeting up at a club called the Phoenix for an after party. It was also advertised on the boat and if you spend $5 you get free pizza. Beau and I arrived a bit after 7 but no one had showed yet. We got a jug and put in our pizza order. A little later the pizza showed up as did about half the people from the boat. We yelled at each other over the loud music then they decided to change venues. We decided we were tired so we said our goodbyes and headed back to the caravan park for a relatively early bed time.

Sandy Cay

 

Airlie Beach

July 7 – Out of Airlie

We got oatmealed and packed up this morning and were ready to get out of Airlie. We stopped in at the Saturday morning market but it seemed quite a few stalls were missing or else the market is just kind of lame. There were a few fruit and veg spots and we were able to get a bunch of vegies but I expected more arts and crafts or at least knick knacks. We stopped at the Hungry Jacks for wifi and Beau got his website updated. We picked up a bunch of groceries then nipped across the road for gas and a grease gun. We are hoping if we grease the ball joint the creaking will stop. We headed out of town and onward to Bowen. Sadly the road conditions leave something to be desired in this country and while they were trying to fix the road in one section is was quite gravely and a passing truck kicked up some rocks at us and chipped our windshield. Beau and I just looked at each other in astonishment for a moment before we started cursing. We even have a rock guard to prevent travesties like this! We'll have to look into getting that fixed now too! We stopped into the info center in Bowen to find out where some bbq's might be to make lunch. The also told us there were some races going on in Townsville and everything would be booked out and our rest stop for the night would be full too. Thanks buddy. We made some lunch in a pretty windy park but then again everywhere was pretty windy. Then Beau greased Dotti all up and it seems to have done the trick, we'll see if it lasts. We drove onwards to just before Ayr, about 100 odd km outside of Towsnville to Home Hill Comfort Stop. It was a rest stop that was just on street parking but there was a kitchen area we could use, bathrooms with showers, and a couple of plugs. The rest stop was quite busy but we parked no problem. The only problem we did have was finding somewhere to plug in the computer since the two jacks were over plugged. We made very spice pork vindaloo. I was surprised at how spicy it was since it was just a package mix. After dinner we headed back to the van and read for a bit.