Whitsundays Sailing Adventure!

We arrived at Airley Beach, the stop off before our Whitsundays sailing trip, and checked into a nice hostel where each dorm was in it's own self contained building surrounding an outdoor pool and hot tub. Unfortunately it was raining constantly, so we couldn't put them to good use!

The next morning we went to find our boat. It was a catameran called 'wings', complete with a hot tub!! The weather was stilll looking pretty grey when we got on the boat, and it only got worse when we were out on the open sea! It started getting pretty rocky as we headed to our first snorkel/diving site, and Amy, Gareth and Steven were all starting to feel pretty seasick! It was still cold and raining when we got to the site, so we decided not to bother with the snorkelling, although Marc decided to go for a dive!

After that we had an amazing buffet dinner, and finished off the night with a box of goon, getting to know the other passengers!

The next morning we woke up to a lot nicer weather, and the boat headed to Whitehaven Beach, where the sand is almost 100% sillica, which means it's absolutely beautiful white sand! The sun was out by that point so we had a play around on the beach and then in the water, where Marc and Steven saw a baby shark! We headed back to the boat for lunch, and got to our next snorkel site. We all went for a snorkel and saw lots of amazing coral and fish. We saw clownfish (aka Nemos) and got to swim alongside a big turtle!!

That evening we moored in a bay which was well known for having dolphins in it. The captain put on some blue lights at the back of the boat which apparently attract squid and fish, which the dolphins then come to eat! We were all drinking out at the back of the boat, and sure enough, two or three dolphins appeared and started playing in the lights! They were coming so close to us we could have stroked them!

The next day there was one more early morning snorkel, before we headed back to shore. The weather got really bad as soon as we started walking back to the hostel, and it rained pretty much constantly until we left Airley Beach, three days later! So we spent most of our time in the hostel, although we did venture out for a night out with the people we met on Wings before we all went our separate ways.