The Whitsunday's

 Day 1 – We are sailing….

A little time check, we are currently 10 days behind on the blog which is pretty good, I think we were close to about 25 on the last count! We’ve managed to catch up due to the record rains experienced in Queensland (not much else to do when you’re in a camper!!) as you will see in the coming days! As I write we are in Hervey Bay and Glenn’s just gone off to the camp kitchen (his turn to cook). Anyway back to sunnier times…

 So today was the start of our sailing trip around the Whitsundays, we were very excited!

We checked out and parked Muriel up in a secure parking bay the camp gave us for free and went to fetch our ciders for the trip. It was BYO and we were told there were no restrictions on quantity. So erring on the side of caution with the thought that we could always bring it back if it wasn’t drunk, it was quite a schlep to the port, each carrying one small backpack and one huge canvas bag each full of booze!

Our fears were quickly realised when our fellow passengers began gathering at the port. Yes we were the oldest. GREAT, nubile young lovelies’ in tiny bikinis and me! Worse still, they only seemed to be carrying a very moderate supply of alcohol, had we got it wrong? Everyone was asked to load their booze onto a cart and was told that all cardboard would be removed and it would be stored together in a huge fridge. Nothing was marked and people was told to only drink what they brought with them. We took up around half of the cart with our supplies whilst the rest stored their 4packs and eyed ours greedily. Shit I might be having a few strong conversations on this trip!

Our Catamaran was ready and we were asked to board and sit in the lounge area where there would be snacks waiting. Glenn laughed when I took off the foil and found Pizza, as I don’t eat cheese it usually means Glenn gets to eat my helping too. Sadly (for Glenn not Shel) it wasn’t to be, I’d added no cheese to the dietary section and was served up a nice ham sandwich how sweet! After intro’s and a safety inspection we were told to head up to the top deck and set sail, the sails were open and we were soon out to sea.

With no private cabins on board (plus they were a bit pricey!) we had asked what the best area was and could we reserve it? Our mate at the agency said he’d have a go and came up trumps when we were shown to a cabin which housed about 8 but had a huge double with a partition and a curtain, brilliant! Settled in, we spent the rest of the afternoon cruising to our 1^st snorkelling spot whilst looking for Hump Back Whales.

We arrived at the spot (no Whales) around 4ish and were given a very detailed health and safety briefing on snorkelling? We each donned our stinger suits, masks and fins and then made our way to a small boat that took us to the snorkel point and also served as our taxi should we not fancy the swim back which I thought was pretty cool. We reached the point and jumped in and it was bloody freezing!, being used to 30 degrees it was like jumping into an ice bucket! We snorkelled for about 20mins seeing the usual fish before I had to give up as it was so cold and we both agreed to swim to the boat to try and warm up a bit.

Back on board I just couldn’t get warm, hot coffee and hot sausage rolls and pies couldn’t do it, the queue for the 1 minute shower we were allowed was full of the young lovelies’ who also decided they would put on their face paint in the shower cubicle too. There was nothing more for it, it was time to break open the booze! We joined in a game of Card’s Against Humanity with a small group of English/Irish travellers whilst waiting for dinner.

So there are 30 kids on this catamaran, all wanting to que jump the buffet que and over help themselves to what was on offer, whether they finish it or not! To my delight I was called out with the vegetarians and asked to make our way in first, RESULT!, Glenn as always waited his turn and ended up going in last and scavenged a small helping of what was left, he now wishes he was a non cheese eater too!

Dinner done, we were treated to a slideshow of what we might find in the ocean on the following day. We also got chatting with a lovely Irish couple who were immigrating to Oz, whilst looking at the blue lights which shone under the boat so you could spot fish. We spotted a sea snake. A couple of people outside of our crowd had words over who was drinking who’s wine so Glenn and I decided to cane as much of our supply as possible to avoid any unnecessary rows if people took ours. Makes sense I think you’d agree?

I think it was around 10pm when I went to bed and left Glenn and the guy from Ireland to it. I was surprised to see that we were the last! BOOM!, the oldest but still able to outlast the young’uns!

Day 2 Whitehaven, Lemon Sharks and Sting Rays

We were told by the skipper that we would be setting sail around 6:30am and the noise of the anchor being pulled up would alert us to this. Both having a pretty crap night sleep, despite our efforts with the ciders, I was ever so slightly annoyed to be woken up at 6am by an alarm one of the girls had set in our cabin area, WHY? She then proceeded to snooze it constantly, obviously deciding that straightening her hair and applying lashings of mascara would be a thankless task on a sailboat! Giving up on sleep I made my wait to the deck for breakfast and brushing of teeth, quickly followed by Glenn.

It was there, with only a handful of people on deck that the skipper started to shout out excitedly. He had spotted a whale! A whale in breach with its beautiful tail in their air, there was a chance she was giving birth! What a wonderful site to behold when brushing ones molars!

Glenn made a dash for the camera and we were able to capture it on film, I do hope you can see the video footage on this blog, it was amazing! She wasn’t giving birth but had a baby (skipper reckoned a few hours old) if you watch the video long enough you will see the baby at the end.   The excited bloke you can hear in the background is the skipper!

Job done, whale spotted, we then made our way to the other side of Whitehaven Beach which is the poster beach for the Whitsundays.  Again, we took turns being ferried across from the Cat to the Island with the chance to do some turtle spotting and once all on land, proceed to trek to the top. The views of Whitehaven from here were absolutely stunning, both Glenn and I don’t think the pics do it justice! We then trekked down to the beach itself.

Arriving at the bottom, we had to take part in some obligatory group photo’s that we were never going to purchase, we were also invited to hang around and have some naff shots of us superimposed so it looked like we were jumping out of jars of vegemite which we could then purchase later for an agreeable rate. After a brief discussion we decided not to partake and went to investigate the beach.

The 98% pure silica sand at Whitehaven beach is said to be some of the whitest in the world, as it’s so pure it was used in the lenses of NASA telescopes (Hubble I think?) and if that’s not impressive enough, it’s supposed to be great to pedicure for your feet with!. So armed with this knowledge we shuffled across the sands for a quick en-route ped (Shel not Glenn) and made our way to an estuary where we were told there was a good chance of spotting Stingray and Lemon Shark.

We were told to stomp our feet in the shallow waters and watch out for stingray taking off beneath the sands, stomp so you don’t land on one and get stung!. With some trepidation we entered the water and made our way up the estuary not seeing a thing! Giving up, we made our way back onto the shore which is when we started to spot the dark clouds which were stingray and then slowly enter the water and creep up on them (but not too close) for a pic.

We were about to give up on the lemon shark where on our way back we suddenly spotted one come right up close to the shore, then like buses we spotted more and more, about 5 in total I think. Happy with our safari, we made our way back to the meeting point and the trek back to the boat. Not bad, 11am and we had spotted whale, turtle, shark and stingray.

Lunch was served whilst we sailed to our next snorkelling spot at tongue bay. We had got a bit wise to the food grabbing so whilst I didn’t get my VIP no cheese pass on this occasion, it was girls before boys so I managed to stock up my plate to give Glenn a chance to have a decent meal (his good manners kept him at the end of the queue).

We were told there were big fish in tongue bay and we wasn’t disappointed! Before leaving the boat we were greeted by a huge bump head wrasse which must have been around 3ft and then when we jumped from the smaller boat we were greeted by more huge wrasse and a massive Trevally, all huge, these fish were BIG!. There was also an abundance of other small beautiful fish and Glenn and I spent some time playing around with them and trying to capture us swimming through them on the go pro but had some malfunction but hopefully we have a few snaps to share.  More impressive and memorable though was when we both made our way away from the crowed and snorkelled off together and heard the whales singing to each other in the deep, really special!

Back on board we were treated to some (no cheese for Shell) nacho’s whilst we sailed to the next spot. The sun was out so Glenn and I made use of the nets at the front of the cat for a spot of sunbathing and whale spotting. We arrived at the next spot around 4ish and given how cold I had got the previous evening  I opted for a hot 1 minute shower instead (no queues) whist Glenn jumped back in with the rest. No real finds for him but I did greet him with a nice G&T when he came back on board.

A pretty average dinner was followed by another slide show which included the vegemite pics, didn’t buy the DVD! We then settled down for the evening chatting to new friends and watching a big Trevally catch its prey under the blue lights of the boat.  The skipper came over and although he was very good, did like the sound of his own voice and was pretty opinionated. Much to the amusement of some of the others as I tried to relay this to him by observing that he was much more of a talker than a listener. I think he got the point by the look he gave me.

Later, we were involved in a discussion about Darwin with the nice Irish couple (I think the gin was taking effect) when again he burst into the conversation weighing in with his opinion which to him was fact. He poo poohed the Darwin theory where Glenn interjected that that would just leave them with Adam, was that who the skipper believed in then? The final nail came from the Irish guy when the skipper asked him what did he know about genetics and “a masters degree in genetic engineering” was his brilliant and true reply, the skipper skulked quickly off to bed with his tail between his legs!

I went to bed and left Glenn and a couple of the others to it. It seemed the skipper wasn’t taking this lying down, not on his ship! He came out and told them they were being selfish and making too much noise so they retired to the back of the boat where again he approached them again saying they were stomping across the deck. They weren’t but they weren’t going to win so went to bed.

Day 3 - Whitsundays/Airlie Beach back on dry Land

Woken with G&T hangovers at 6:30 we packed our bags and made our way to deck for b/f where we wasn’t greeted by the skipper (he was actually sulking). Not feeling much like it at all but wanting to prove to him that we wasn’t actually hungover, we donned our stinger suits and went for our final snorkel. No new fish to report but some beautiful coral. Glenn was too hungover to take the GO PRO so no pics to share.

Back on board we dried off as the Cat made its way back to the port with the crew busily cleaning around us. The boat was due to arrive at 11 and due out again with a new crew at 1pm. Most people were sleeping off the previous evening’s excitement but Glenn and I managed to soldier through it and show the young’uns we weren’t so long in the tooth!

Back on land we made our way back to camp, considerably lighter than when we came. We checked in for our free night and set-up camp. Our stuff (Glenn’s shoes really) stank from the sea water so the priority was getting some washing done and then just chilling till the evening.

The crew had organised a bit of a farewell party in the bar attached to our site. Being so close we thought we should show our faces so made our way there to say our hello/goodbyes. There was a beer pong competition going on so we entered and got annihilated by our opponents very quickly and spent the evening cheering on a really nice Canadian guy and his mate who we had made friends with on the boat and was also involved in Darwin-gate.

We then made our way back to the paddy bar which had music. We met up with a few more there but to be honest our age had crept up with us so we went in search for Muriel and bed around 1am.

We loved the Whitsundays but with hindsight would have preferred a smaller boat with people more our age (thank god we didn’t opt for the cheaper backpacker boats). We met some lovely people but felt a bit too old to be queue jumping to get the last bread roll, or squabbling over who had the last beer.