Stonehaven Bay

Having never slept on a boat before it was a strange nights sleep. It took me a while to doze off as the rocking of the boat made me feel a bit like I was drunk. Our 7am wake up call was the Lion King's Circle of Life on full blast which was a bit different. I quite liked it though. Breakfast consisted of fruit, cereal and toast which we ate out on the front of the boat.

Our first stop was Whitehaven Beach where our skipper Steve took us over in groups. It wasn't even 9am yet and we were stepping onto the softest sand I have ever stood on. It's the purest sand in the world at around 98% silica. It's so pure that you can get fined an extortionate amount of money if you take any from the beach as NASA use it to clean their telescopes. Crazy! It also squeaked beneath your feet which was funny. We had until around 11:30am to enjoy the beach so we took some pics, swam in the sea and played with a frisbee. The sand is supposed to be great for your skin and hair so some of us ladies set up a little spa, exfoliating ourselves with the sand. Apparently if you wash your hair in it as well it goes really shiny. I gave this a go and it's certainly soft but not so sure about shiny (but that may be more to do with the 1 minute boat showers),

After beach time we headed up to a lookout to get a view out over the sea. It was nearly noon by this point and it was stinking hot so for a short walk, it took us all a while to get up there. The majority of the group were various shades of pink by this point as well. They warned us beforehand that you had to apply suncream more often than usual because the sand is so white, the sun reflects off it, in the same way it does in the snow. At the top we were rewarded with spectacular views. When the tide goes out it leaves pretty swirls in the sand which is amazing to look at. Apparently with every tide, the patterns change so you will never get the same 2 photographs which is pretty cool.

Hot, bothered and exceptionally hungry, we all headed back to the boat for a Subway style baguette lunch, whilst Steve drove us to our next stop, Mackerel Bay for some more snorkelling. The snorkelling here was really good and a million times better than yesterday. The water was much clearer and my mask didn't keep steaming up so I got to see lots of beautiful coral and fish. We even spotted some really big Nemo's and a turtle!

Back on the boat, we headed round to Manta Ray Bay to feed some fish with some pellets that Steve had brought with him. The fish here were huge! One in particular was a local fish called George. I have no idea what type of fish he was but he was massive!

Our final stop for the evening was Stonehaven where we anchored up for the night. Throughout they day, our hosts Bex and Kate had been taking pictures of us so in the evening after dinner we went through the pictures. There were some good ones as well as a very unglamorous one of me looking like I'm drowning whilst snorkelling on the first day!

Everyone was pretty pooped after a long day in the sun so pretty much everyone tucked in early including me.Read more