Whitsunday Islands

March 13...
Just returned from an amazing sail around the Whitsunday Islands!!! We had SO much fun. We stayed on a catamaran with 17 other people and 4 crew. It had lots of deck space outside, a "saloon" for lounging in/eating, bunks below with bathrooms... We were very lucky, we decided to just show up in Airlie Beach and try to book a cheap stand by cruise. We stopped at a stand by travel agency right when we got into town, and found one leaving that night! It was a 3 night 3 day, so it meant we didn't have to book a hostel that night, and it was super cheap (for the Whitsundays)! We also booked a Fraser Island trip through them for really cheap. It pays to be last minute in low season here!

There were many cool people on our boat from all over. It was a nice change from the usual backpackers you see at hostels. Everyone was reallly interesting and unique. There were two Belgium couples who were hilarious and a lot of fun. One's name was Stijn but apparently noone in Oz could pronounce it, so they always joked around and called him "Stijj-n" (ie pronouncing the j). There was a Scottish couple who we got along so well with. The girl was a riot! She pulled out some bag pipe music one night and did some highland dancing for us! (after a few drinks that is...) There was also a Swedish lady who was hilarious, a really friendly Singapore guy, a cool German couple, several British girls, some Canadian girls, a Kiwi guy, and a boring American couple haha. It was really fun getting to know and partying on the boat with them.

We went to a few snorkel spots which were pretty cool (though nothing close to the reef snorkel trip we did in Cairns!) At one place schools of fish surrounded you hoping you would feed them. Unfortunately we didn't get out to the outer reef because it was so windy during our trip. We tried an intro dive as well. I have to say, I'm not sure I liked it very much. We didn't get to see all that much other than what we had already seen snorkeling, although we did see these cool Christmas worms whose feathery things disappeared when you flicked them. I didn't really like breathing through the tank though, because I am much more of a nose breather than a mouth breather. Mike liked it though.

Food was plentiful and good (lots of snacks, which was good for me :) ), beds were small but cozy. Oh one thing that I did NOT like was not being able to use shampoo. You had to use soap to wash your hair. Something about shampoo being bad for the reef? I can't remember. But my hair was DISGUSTING. And we were only allowed one minute showers a day, but that wasn't so bad. Spent our days snorkeling, sitting in the sun and visiting with our fellow travelers, and reading. The first day we stopped at Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island (there are actually 74 islands in total), which apparently has the whitest sand in the world, very very fine sand made of pure silica. Made a squeaking sand when you walked in it. There near the shore we saw baby tiger sharks and sting rays. The baby sting rays were a foot or two long! Full grown they can be 1-4 metres!

The way back was pretty rough. Mike got very sea sick, and it didn't help that he was hungover from partying the night before hehe.

All in all we had a really great time, and were sad to say goodbye to all the great people we met.

Oh I don't think I mentioned our last day at Magnetic Island yet. We went to the wildlife reserve thing nextdoor to the hostel. It was ok, we got to hold lots of animals so that was cool (koala - so cute!, wombat, bearded dragon and blue tongue lizards, python snake, little crocodile). Then we went to a beautiful waterfall swimming hole. Spent the night playing euchre with Boris and our new American friend! Left early the next day, very sad to say good bye to Boris and Ryan. One of the sad parts about travelling :(