Whitsunday

Day 18
I checked out and put my bags in the hostel storage for the next couple of days. I went to check in for my tour down the road after eating brekkie and then went back to the hostel to hang out in reception until 1pm when Natasha (she was on my Fraser Island tour also) and I walked down to the marina to meet our tour group. Before getting on the boat I went to the bottle shop and got white goons (the tour was BYOB). What I really wanted to be drinking on a boat in the middle of paradise was White Claws but unfortunately they don’t have them in Australia and don't have anything similar. These are something that I didn't expect to miss while traveling. Once we were on the boat, we went downstairs to choose our beds (which were small beds like you would expect on a sail boat) and went back up to the deck to get an introduction to the ship and what to expect for the next couple of days. After a little while of sailing we dropped anchor and they put out a diving block for us to jump off into the water for some swimming. We had to wear stinger suits, which were head to toe zip up suits to protect you from jellyfish and stingrays, which the waters are filled with during this time of year. They aren’t the most fashionable but they keep you safe and protect you from the sun while swimming. The current was very strong and even as a strong swimmer it was really tiring to swim against. On the boat there was a chief who prepared all of our meals for us. The first night we had a white fish, mashed potatoes and green beans; it was pretty good. The sun went down pretty early and we spent the evening/ night drinking on the boat. I was really tired and went down to bed around 10ish, the lights and music on the boat turned off at 12. The reason I chose this particular boat (there are a lot of boat options for the Whitsundays) was because there was air conditioning on it, but it was so hot that I could barely sleep. I went upstairs to go to the bathroom (there were 2 on the boat both with showers) and stuck my head outside to look at the stars. The sky was light up with them, more than I have probably ever seen, but I was too nervous to go outside and actually look (we were in the middle of the ocean and who knows what I may have seen in the water).

Day 19
At 6:30am music came on over the speaker and we were all woken up for the day. We had brekkie which was cereal, toast, and fresh fruit and then got dressed as we started sailing to our first destination of the day. We went to Whitehaven Beach where we went on a walk up to 3 lookout points and then headed to the beach to spend a couple of hours. Whitehaven beach has the clearest waters and you can walk out so far. Whitehaven Beach is known for its very fine white sand, which is 98% pure silica. The sand here does not retain heat so it is very comfortable to walk on it barefoot. If you get caught trying to take sand home from Whitehaven Beach you will get a $10,000 fine; the sand is very protected. We saw baby reef sharks and stingrays (good thing we had our suits on) while swimming in the water. We headed back to the boat and had lunch (some pasta salads and sandwiches) before heading to our afternoon spot where we had the choice to snorkel (which was included on the tour) or pay extra to go scuba diving. I decided to pay and do the scuba dive and man, am I glad I did. It was such an incredible experience. We got all geared up, the tank was about 30 pounds and then they put a weighted belt on you as well to help when you are in the water. We took a small boat to the area we were scuba diving and learned all the signals and how to breath in the water before going down. The instructor had me and the other girl (Emma) on our knees under water to get used to breathing. I came back to the surface because I felt like my lungs were tired from breathing in and out too hard and I started panicking thinking I wouldn’t be able to breath when I went under. It turns out I was breathing way harder than I needed to be, so once he explained that to me, I was able to calm down and go back under the water. We gradually made our way down along the ocean floor, we went down to 12 meters, which is 39 feet. It felt amazing being able to swim along the fish and coral and not having to worry about coming up for air. Typically, your first time diving the instructor will be linked up to you but ours let us swim behind him on our own which was sooo cool. When scuba diving, you need to keep your body horizontal and keep your head down; so in order to go deeper into the water you need to exhale air and to move up in the water you need to inhale air. This seems like it would be hard but it was surprisingly easy to do. I am so happy that I decided to scuba dive and proud of myself for getting out of my head about the breathing and really let myself enjoy it; if I saw a shark I may have freaked out though! We were down there 20-30 minutes before coming back to the surface. I would definitely recommend everyone try it at least once. We got on the boat and made our way to a beach with our wine, where we got out to watch the sunset (due to cloudy skies there really wasn’t much of a sunset). We returned to the boat for dinner, which was spaghetti bolognaise with garlic bread and salad, and had our final night drinking on the boat together. While we were all drinking we saw 3 stingrays in a mating circle next to our boat, where they stayed for hours just swimming in a circle. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any other wildlife from the boat. It is crazy how quickly you become close with other people when almost everyone is traveling alone and you spend 2 nights on a boat in the middle of the ocean together. A bunch of us decided that we were going to sleep on the deck of the boat since it was so hot in the cabins the night before. The breeze was amazing but about 25 minutes after laying out there on beanbags, it began to rain so I went back to my bed while others slept upstairs on the kitchen floor and kitchen wrap around couch. It is crazy how quickly you become close with other people when almost everyone is traveling alone and you spend 2 nights on a boat in the middle of the ocean together.

Day 20
Another early morning, today was our last day on the boat so after brekkie we started making our way back to Airlie beach. We stopped to jump off the boat and go down an inflatable slide they attached to the boat (it immediately started pouring when we anchored). We had the option of paying for an extra activity, one being a jet boat ride the other being the banana boat ride. I chose to do the banana boat and it was sooo much fun. It was a big banana shaped tube that held 6 people which was pulled by a jet ski. The person driving the jet ski is essentially trying to throw people off the tube the entire time, going over waves and wiping it around. Needless to say we were constantly stopping to retrieve bodies in the water and there were limbs flying in all different directions. It was a blast! Once we got back on the boat we had lunch, which was a hotdog with onions and then we headed back to Airlie Beach to end our trip. We docked about 1:30-2pm and I had a lot of time to kill until 8pm when my overnight bus to Cairns was leaving. I went back with Isabel, a girl from the boat and hung in her room at the hostel then took a shower and grabbed some dinner before getting a taxi to the bus station. The bus ride from Airlie Beach to Cairns was 10 hours and I got about 3 hours of sleep before the bus arrived a little before 6am.Read more