The Whitsunday Islands

North Whitehaven Beach
see all photos »

At last! We're blogging the Whitsundays! It was such an amazing trip we've put off writing it to really spend some time on it but of course, we'll forget about it soon! The Whitsunday Islands are a group of Islands off the East coast of Queensland, surrounded by the Great Barrier Reef. There are many many different boats that sail the islands taking tourists/travellers around to see the sights. We spent a day researching the best deal and best boat to go on as we had had heard a bad boat can ruin the trip and is a general waste of cash. We had recommendations of a boat named 'Matador' so we booked onto that.

Paul working the ropes
see all photos »

Anyway, Day 1 began at the Port in Airlie Beach, we made sure we had enough Goon for the trip (Bags of wine) and waited for the call to board. The Boat was an 1990's World Champion Sailing Maxi Yacht with Captain Pete making us all welcome straight away. After a quick introduction we were off sailing through the Malle Group of Islands, accross the Whitsunday Passage via Hamilton Island and to the Solway Pass. Because it was a full blown racing yacht it needed a fair sized crew to operate it. There was however only 3 guys there and one lady orgainiser/chef. This meant we had a great opportunity to get involved and do things like raise the sails. The wind wind was strong on the first day so we did a lot of tacking through the pass, getting a great lean on from the sails.

Posted by Adam

CIMG1478
see all photos »

We sailed to Whitehaven Beach as a first stop off. Because it was Stinger season we all had to wear our stinger suits before going in the water as we didn't want an incident with a Box Jellyfiesh! Whitehaven Beach is famous for having the purest sand in the world...with no dirt or shells it is classified as 98% Silica and is like walking on Flour.

We dropped the anchor and stopped just off the shore. We all had a good drink with the other people on the boat and got to sleep late. The boat is made to hold 26 people but actually only had 13 on it so we all had enough room and sleeping on board wasnt a problem. Apart from Paul's snoring! Our fellow sailors were a top bunch of people and everyone got on really well. It was one of the things that made the trip what it was.

The gang on board
see all photos »

Day 2: we sailed a short way to the National Park Hill Inlet Lookout. We trecked along the boardwalks to the viewpoint and then to the beach below where we randomly bumped into two of the guys we met in Thailand, Max and Ben. We sailed to Luncheon Bay to do some snorkiling where we saw a good load of fish, coral and even a ray. We saw some dolphins surfacing a hundred metres or so away and upon arrival at our stop for the nigh (Blue Pearl Bay) we even saw a reef shark. The captain was tempting a Bat Fish to eat some of the scraps of beef from dinner when a shark came flying in from underneath the boat to steal the food. We all cheared!

Day 3: We woke early the next morning as we were at what Captain Pete called "Fish World". It was meant to be one of the best places to snorkle in the Reef with an enormous diversity of fish and coral. The others three did a scuba dive but i snorkled over to where the action was and experienced probably my highligh of tour so far. The fish were incredible; there were thousands of them and all of varying sizes. At times you couldn't even see ahead of you due to the amount of fish in the way! It was just like how i imagined the reef would be like.

From there we sailed to Langford Reef (Turtle World), although it was only Paul that saw a Turtle there! We had to head back to mailand from there so we started sailing back in the blazing heat. We were all posing for photos at the wheel of the yacht when Pete asked if i wanted to take charge! I jumped at the chance and steered it for half hour or so before giving George a go.

We all had an awesome time, the people on the boat were great, the crew were a good laugh and gave us all the information we needed and the weather held out for us. We would all definately recommend doing the Whitsundays and booking with the Matador.