Boating

The Whitsundays!
Early morning rise to get to the boat were supposed to meet the crew at the pier with every other tour group, where we were sitting we were surronded by oldies, but luckily there was a differant boat for them! Our group was a nice mix, swedish girls canadian family, swiss and german couple, another german couple, an english girl and an irish couple, pretty mixed agegroup which was good! Stacey the host met us at the pier and we all followed her onboard to meet the restof the crew...Logan the deckhand and Richard the captain!After that we were shown our rooms! hmmmmmm....Our cabin was so small that the 5 of us who were sleeping in ther couldnt go down at the same time... it was very coffin like!! scary!decided to forget about it til we had to go to bed.
The first day was spent mostly onboard the fabulous Derwent Hunter, not sailing tho cos there was no wind! Docked at Tongue bay to climb to the Whitehaven lookout. wasnt too bad except for the heat and te flies hat Denis seemed to attract It was well worth it, Beautiful views of whitehaven beach, clear blue geeen water and white sand voted the 5th most beautiful beach in the world! . We then got about 3 hours to enjoy the beach, but we had to wear our superhero suits for swimming (stinger suits)to protect against the jellies that there is no cure for! we all looked like trekkies! Anyway back to the boat for some more yummy food, sunset dips followed by a lovely dinner and some drinks!Logan then gave us a rundown on where we had been on the map followed by what we should expect to see when snorkelling the following day, after thaaattt Richard the captain took us to the back of the boat to show us the night sky, it was such a clear night. sitting around having a few drinks after that we were chating to Sarah and Brian, saw some lightning in the distance then discoved that Sarah had been hit by lightning before and its common for people that have been hit once will be hit again! scary especially seeing as at this stage we had decided that we would be sleeping on deck! claimed our spot on deck, everyone from our room was sleeping up there as well as the crew.... but of course it started to rain! as soon as it did most of us headed off downstairs but we really couldnt handle the confined space so after the english girl freaked us out by talking about coffins ets we decided to sleep on deck rain or no rain!!!it wasnt too bad!
Early rise the next day for some snorkelling on the reef! wow it was fantastic, actually it was unbelievable! saw so many fishes! i spent most of the time concentrating on not being touched by the buggers but the stinger suit helped! that was followed by more yummy food which seemed to happen at least every 2 hours at this stage not what us backpackers are used to! Denis attempted a bit of sailing after that which was a good laugh! not much wind tho which was a pity! Went to some more beautiful beaches, saw hamiliton island and haven island resort aswell which was cool to c! another attempt at sleeping on deck tonight, had a few beers first so that might have helped! of course it rained and we moved our beds/mats about 4 times but we got some sleep!
Ourlast day started with the usual buffet brekkie followed by some snorkelling on black island, that ws really cool, saw a sea turtle! massive! back to the boat for more food and then attempted to sail back to the Arlie beach harbour... didnt get far with the lack of winds. At this stage the boat had beome our new home, really didnt want to get off... really, the food, the crew and the crack was great, was such a relaxing trip! went out that night with some of the people from the boat that night but with the sea legs we had we didnt last long!