The Whitsundays

We had been looking forward to sailing The Whitsunday islands (accessed from Airlie Beach) since arriving in Oz as it was a real highlight of Beckys previous travels in Australia. This time it again lived up to expectations. After a few days camping in the town, deciding on the best way to explore the islands, we arrived early on Tuesday morning with 22 other people to board a blue Pocket Maxi sailing boat called 'Freight Train' for 3 days and 2 nights sailing.

The Whitsundays are a group of islands nestling of the east coast of Australia with spectular clear water, white sand beaches and amazingly coloured fringing coral. The first day the weather was a little overcast and we even had some rain. However not to let that spoil things we sailed out to a dive spot called Luncheon bay to put our recently aquired PADI diving certificates to the test with a free 20 minute dive. Unfortunately Becky was feeling a bit sea sick on the boat and in her haste to get off had picked up an ill-fitting pair of fins so was unable to do the dive but Holland made the most of his 20 minutes and saw outstanding and vividly coloured coral ranging from electric blue to bright orange. The underwater scenery was stunning.

On the second day the sky cleared, and the sun was blazing as we sailed up to one of the worlds best beaches, Whitehaven. This sandy paradise is so white the sand squeaks when you walk on it. In the clear water we could see five or more massive Stingrays and Holland in his excitment to see them properly, grabbed his snorkel mask and ran into the water fully clothed and put his face in the water with his baseball cap still on! Becky was intent on photographing them and was getting worryingly close especially after the recent events concerning stingrays!

On the last day we snorkelled with hundreds of fish in a dive spot aptly nicknamed 'The Aquarium', home to a huge fish named Elvis (because of his huge lips) who would even let you pet him. Here Holland did the best dive of his life, A longer dive through an area of coral called 'the maze'.

He saw countless mind-blowing coral formations, enormous fish and a clam one meter long. A friend of ours had an underwater housing for his digital camera and took these outstanding photos. After drying off, we set off on the four hour sail back to Airlie beach and a big night out with the whole boat and crew on dry land.

Hol and Bex x