Sea Star Apartments Airlie Beach

... minutes back to our hostel, it turns out that most people were staying there which was cool. After getting our big packs out of storage from down the road we hit the showers to try and get the 2 days worth of sand and salt water off, the boat had showers but not very powerful and we were only allowed very short ones to save water. LJ had a sore throat all day so we stopped and got here some medicine to gargle, after sorting ourselves out with a belly full of ...

... beds inside....

Day 2 - up early as the crew were up about 6.30am so figured I may as well get up... the rest of the boys surfaced a bit later! Sailed over to whitehaven beach and we had a few hours there in the morning....
By this point I was actually starting to get bored of beaches which I NEVER thought I would say as I LOVE beaches! But 5 months of beaches in Thailand, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia..... (hard life!)... then there's ...

... as empty our masks and get rid of the water from our mouthpiece. He then took us by the hand and took us down to the reef. We were under for 45 minutes during which time we saw parrotfish eating the coral fish, anemones and Nemo fish, all sorts of other fish, lots of different coloured coral and some huge fish, one of which, ‘Wally’ came right up to us and posed for the photographer for a shot which we bought later on. It was all amazing and ...

... out a bit while Tommo the Skipper navigated our way to Mantaray Bay for our next dive spot. On our way Tommo called out Whale and so we all jumped out onto the front of the boat to see in the horizon there was in fact a Whale splashing around. We got closer and closer to it, Tommo turned off the engine and we stood there in awe waiting to see it more closely as it became apparent it was a mother and calf playing together in the surf. The calf played around ...

... of game 2 ‘hit me baby one more time’ and you’d have thought she’d won Tattslotto by our reaction.

Maegan was so excited she was guiding Lucy to the winners table, back slapping her all the way there!

Reluctantly by darkness we return to the boat. We have to bet back to the Marina by 9am to un-pack, refuel and debrief. Our adventure had come to an end – it was worth every extra year we’ll need to pay back the expense!!!!

... various sizes, shapes, circular ones, furry coral, a multitude of colours, dark and light and so large. It was exhilirating to constantly see so much variation in the water, its ***********template how much is down there until you are swimming in there. I can't wait for the Great Barrier Reef which is meant to be even better!! After having lunch and chilling out socialising with the rest of the group we did another ...

... nd we bo*rded the bo*t *t *bout 7pm. It w*s * groups of 32 people m*inly consisting of Irish, Germ*n, French *nd English. Obviously the first night everyone kind* kept to themselves until we *ll settled in ok. There w*s * group of Swiss girls who cle*rly got on the wrong bo*t coz they though it w*s purely some sort of p*rty bo*t *nd they kind* *nnoyed everyone but *fter th*t night they soon re*lised *nd c*lmed down *nd kept them selves to them selves. The following d*y we Went ...

... could have stayed in all day. There were 5 lads from Berko on our little boat, and we had a right laugh and kept everone else up oops oh well. We'ev met so many people from Bucks, on our first night in Brisbane we shared a room with a girl I knew from home! Wierd. Was good fun staying on the tiny tiny boat and the sky was literally lit up with all the stars cos there's no light pollution.

... pristine Whitsunday Islands, a 74 island archipelago protected by the Great Barrier Reef and offering countless secluded anchorages for the hundreds of yachties that come and go.

i settled for a day trip on a large powervessel that took us to various places around the islands including Hill Inlet, the premo lookout that gives uninterrupted views of Whitehaven ...