The Whitsundays Islands

The Whitsundays Islands in Australia, named because it was Sunday and a holy day when Captain Cook arrived there. Wikipedia says that they had a timekeeping problem and it was really a Monday...whatever. I went out with a tour where we sailed around to some of the best spots around the islands. I barely knew what I was getting into, but it was a fantastic experience.

The first afternoon, after mingling and sailing a bit, we had our first snorkeling adventure. Now I've played around with snorkels at home in swimming pools and such, but nothing was like this.

We arrived at a little cove next to an island, and they pointed to a section of the water that supposedly had some things to see. After putting on a stinger suit and getting a mask and snorkel that hopefully wouldn't leak, I was the first to jump off the boat and start swimming to the reef area. At first, I swam way too hard and started to tire myself out. A little ways away from the boat, I looked behind me and no one else had jumped off the boat yet! Also, the small dingy motorboat that Liam (one of our guides) was gonna take out for help wasn't even unhooked from the boat yet. I kind of started to freak out a little bit. I put my mask and snorkel on and started to look at the ocean floor, couldn't see much, but mostly I was thinking about the lack of air I was getting, since I was already panting from swimming too hard I couldn't get enough air through the snorkel.

Looking back to see that I was still the only one out, I decided to stop freaking out. I realized that I could stay afloat while treading water much less vigorously, and got my breathing down to a normal pace. Now I tried to put my snorkel on again and went under. Wow. I'm not sure if I floated to a different place than before or just wasn't looking before, but what I saw was amazing. This is the first time I've seen a reef like this with my own eyes. Colorful algae, colorful fish, everything alive and in its own natural habitat. I was able to breathe deeply through the snorkel and I was off exploring the reef from the surface! Before I knew it everyone else was around me and the motorboat was going around to anyone who asked.

While exploring happily on the surface, I was suddenly hit by something from below, oh wait it was someone! My childhood pool snorkeling skills came back to me, and I realized I should be diving down right next to all the corals and fish! I started to breathe in, dive down to take a closer look, and then come up and blow the water out of the snorkel with my breath out. The closer looks were even more amazing than exploring it from above, no aquarium or video footage prepared me for this. The only bad part about the diving was that I couldn't seem to depressurize my ears, so it felt a bit uncomfortable going down very deep. Before this I hadn't really had a strong desire to go scuba diving, but this definitely changed my mind.

After leaving this cove we went around to an anchor spot and spent the night there. We watched the sun fall, ate some delicious dinner, and drank the night away on the mighty Boomerang.

Boomerang was the name of our sailboat. It was built in 1987(same age as me!) and won the world record for fastest sailboat in 1988. After a life of races, it became a charter boat for the Whitsundays around 2002. When it was a racing boat it didn't have anything below deck since all the action happened above with people trying to make the boat go as fast as possible, but now it was decked out with about 28 beds, captain's quarters, a galley(kitchen), and a few tables. This meant it was not built for comfort, so on deck there were just obstacles anywhere and no real place to sit and hang out, but we made do hanging around the grinders. People just got hit in the head a few times haha.

The next morning we went straight to another dive spot that the guides said was even better. It was in fact even more amazing than the first. This time the reef area was farther from the sailboat than before, so Liam took us all out in the dingy and we jumped out of the small boat into an even more colorful reef with schools of fish going right past us. Sometimes he would throw food into the water and all the fish would come to the surface so we could get a closer look. So much variety too. A few of the fish were really big, like the size of my thigh, just roaming around in the reef soaking up the sun shining through the water. I tried to reach out to a few but they moved too fast and would always know when I was reaching out to them! It's those eyes on the sides of their head!

Liam lent me a waterproof iPhone case while out here, so I took a few pics.

After our second snorkel, we made the long journey to Whitehaven beach. It was time to put up the sails! Putting up the sails was hard work, since it was a pretty big boat and a pretty big sail, we all had to work on the grinders together to raise the heavy sail. It was a bit easier to raise the front one. The crew said that the sail itself would cost nearly 1 million dollars to replace. Wow, no wonder boats are so expensive. On the way over there we got to see some whales as well. It wasn't the cliche whale jumping out of the water, but we definitely saw some blowhole spouting and some tail flips out of the water.

Finally we made it to Whitehaven beach. This beach has sand of 99.9% silica, which means it's the purest sand in the world. NASA supposedly uses it to make telescope lenses. We stopped on a little cove and hiked over to see the views and hang out on the beach for a bit. After a few hours chilling and playing some sports(American football and frisbee wooo) we headed back to the boat and anchored for another sunset evening. Oh yeah another sidenote, they call American football Grid Iron here in Australia. Grid Iron? I had never heard of that one before.

The rest of the trip was quite uneventful, just some sailing...except for the last bit on our way back to the harbor. There was another boat called Slap Me that apparently isn't very good. It's more of a budget option and the boat is slower and maybe the tour isn't as good? Anyway, our crew said they usually try to pass them to show them you get what you pay for haha. And they don't just pass them once, they do it twice.

Once we got close I realized the boat also has a big red handprint on the back of the ship. Quite appropriate for a boat called Slap Me. We passed them once, the crews exchanged insults. We were smiling and laughing, but I'm not sure if they were haha. One guy mooned us. Then we slowed down, let them pass, and did it again! This time we passed them into the distance at 7 knots with the mighty Boomerang and made it back to port well before them. Now we were back in the small beach town of Airlie Beach, ready to take on the evening.