Sailing the Whitsundays is one of three must-sees in Queensland. The other two being 4WDing on Fraser and diving in Cairns.
The Whitsundays consist of more than 70 islands
Fortunately I just got the boat I was looking for. It was a catamaran (LOA: 15m, Beam 9m) with diving on board at a standby rate saving me $150. They crammed 21 people + 4 crew on board and so there was a snug atmosphere but still quite enjoyable.
All the sheets and sails were operated with hydraulics and so there was not much we could do to help the skipper. The swell picked up and so it was quite a bumpy trip with at least half the passengers getting sick on the way to the Whitsundays.
Wings III
Our first stop was Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island and after lunch most of the passengers had recovered from the ride over.
There were just 3 certified divers on board but unfortunately only one girl wanted to go diving once and so most of the time I was out there with the diving instructors.
my buddy and me just before the first dive
The vis was pretty poor, 5 meters ish, but since I have never seen corals before it was still amazing.
taking a break on a tree trunk, forgot my KitKat, though
The turtles eat a lot of toxic jelly fish and hover like stoned thru the water. The movie “Finding Nemo” is actually pretty accurate regarding the turtles. As you might recall they appear to be a bit oblivious of what is going on around them like “ Easy, dude. No worries, m8”. If you lifted them up they’d go “hey, man. What’d just happened?”. You can have a lot of fun with them and they let you really close.
Another of my fav is the lizard fish. It is bright fish about 15 cm big and sits on a dark rock or on the ground. He goes:
“I am so well camouflaged the diver cant see me.”
“The diver gets close but he definitely cant see me.”
“Oops, the diver spotted me. Better beat it”
Rather than swimming away the fish literally just leaps 20 cm and the game starts all over. Just cute.
There appears to be a myriad of different fish, clams, corals and sponges. Hard to find the appropriate words for such a big bio diversity.
The following day we went to Whitehaven Beach, allegedly one of the world’s most beautiful beaches (they say top 5). It is really beautiful but I am not sure it makes top 5. I mean, there must be some prettier beaches in Hawaii, the Caribbean or on the Maldives, Fiji.
The white sand is made of 99% silicon, it really feels great just walking on it. We were the first on the beach and saw a lot of stingrays in the shallow water as the tide slowly came in.
Whitehaven Beach, top5 beaches in the world
In the afternoon we took some pictures taking advantage of optical illusions. Quite nice what those guys did. Here’s an example. You can probably imagine how much fun we had looking at the pictures afterwards on the boat.
optical ilusion pic
They put up a movie in the evening and so there was not much socializing. I guess they did that on purpose to prevent us from getting hammered. As I had another dive scheduled at 7:00h the next morning I couldn’t be bothered less.
Summing up the trip it was a wonderful experience enjoying great food and some great people.
As mentioned before there was not much actual sailing but I guess I did nuff o' that in Bris already. We had a comfy boat and I might have seen Nemo.
By “might” I mean I have seen some black and white clown fish. Only question remaining is whether Nemo has a black and white cousin or if that black was actually red and the water depth faded out the color red (for non-divers: below 6m ish you cant see the color red anymore)
…to be answered in Cairns.
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