December 14th 2005 - White Squall

We arrived at 6:30 in the morning to Airlie Beach after a horrific night of tossing and turning in another night bus. Thankfully, I had been well rested the nights before in Yappoon. We lingered around town waiting for things to open and grabbed a quick breakfast at a bakery before leaving our bags in a storage locker at the hostel. We wandered around the small town, the main street, picking up the essentials for our trip, sun screen and an underwater camera. Our scheduled departure time was 1:30 and by 10:30 we had seen all of the town and headed into the marina to look at the other rental boats we could have chosen. 1:30 rolled around and the owner of the boat regretfully announced that the boat had engine blockage and they were awaiting a mechanic to remedy the problem. Since the boat was built in 1928 - the Ron of Argyll, the mechanic had a job getting access to the bilge pipes and it took 4 hours to repair before we were on our way. In hindsight, I think it was one girls bad luck that caused the delay. This poor girl had flipped a 4WD truck on the Self Guided Fraser Island trip, had torrential rains on her vacation in Noosa and proceeded to inadvertently cause the engine trouble on the boat. Thankfully, other than her irritating personality, that was the only thing that went wrong on our sailing trip, although the snorkelling on the second day could have been better! We set sail just before dinner and motored with partial sail out to Molle Island, where we anchored and set off to an island resort where we had cocktails at a bar next to a waterfall and pool, while the crew finished preparations for dinner. The fish and salads were divine and when we were all contented and passing out at 12:00 pm from the heat of the previous day, the captain stayed up all night with some broad he picked up from shore, to get us to the far reaches of the Whitsundays and get us back on track. The captain and shipmate although funny and qualified, were players and somehow we had a volunteer Dutch girl helping and picked up a french girl from the resort for the 2 days - needless to say both were attractive. If I only had breasts I could have saved myself 250$. The boat was a 50ft, 2 masted sail boat, that was rumoured to have been christened by Marilyn Monroe and her partner some years ago before being purchased by the current owners. No one was able to tell us which bunk! The inside was all wood finished and slept 12 comfortably. Complete with shower and ipod adapter - although the shower was the same stall as the toilet and you were expected just to spray water everywhere. The disadvantage to such an old boat is that we never got its full four sails up without the engine running. The wind was too strong for the main and would risk breaking some of the rigging, not quite a white squall, but strong enough to hinder my sailing experience.

The next morning we had sunrise at Whitehaven beach - the whitest sand beach in the world and then a short hike to a lookout and the beach for a couple of hours of lounging before heading off to the reef. The snorkeling that followed was like nothing I'd ever seen before. Such vibrant colours and variety of fish. Thankfully we saw tons of species, but a shark was not one of them - otherwise I think I would have shat myself! We're waiting for our camera development and hope they do it some justice! We saw sea turtles, an iguanna, but no dolphins or whales (they are out of season).

The meals kept coming and always surprised me with how good the food was, considering the small size of the kitchen and limited stove top. A few glasses of wine on the deck and then another night in the steaming hot cabin to sleep, although that night I'm sure that Laure and I were 'black robed' by some other couple onboard. I meandered up onto the deck at 4am and proceeded to sleep with a life jacket as a pillow, until I was rudely awakened by a 5:30 am scorching sunrise. Currently, all of my freckles are almost completely fused and Laure is still white by most peoples standards, but people who know her can tell she actually is quite tanned ;)-

As mentioned the snorkelling that morning was quite poor because the winds and tides shifted stirring up the water. We headed bacj to the marina and said our goodbyes. Laure and I both have spent the rest of the afternoon since in a drunken haze trying to re-establish our land legs. Tonight we're heading for Cairns on yet another night bus :(. This way we save a day of transit and can spend an extra night in the Daintree rainforest.