Sailing is such a hard life
Trip Start
Mar 15, 2006
1
28
42
Trip End
May 30, 2007
The Whitsundays,
Australia
Friday, July 7, 2006
After returning from my trip roving around in a 4x4, I changed means of transport for my next endeavour and boarded a racing yacht to cruise the Whitsunday Islands.
The guys who man these vessels have such a hard life, sailing around some of the world's most beautiful islands for two or three days at a time without much of a care...
Our voyage began from Airlie Beach, another nice yet busy-with-backpackers town. From here we were on the water for the next 48 hours and two nights. We were amazingly lucky with the weather, and it was absolutley glorious for the full three days
01. A famous sailing name...our home for 2 nights
.Apparently if you know anything about sailing (obviously I don't) you should know the name 'Condor', as this boat holds the record for being the only one to win all of the major international races TWICE. Good one to be on then. She stoppped racing in 1993 and has since been enjoying her retirement by waltzing around the Whitsundays.
We spent much of our time lazing around on board. The idea is that you get to help out with the sailing of the yacht, but unfortunately we were only able to raise the sail once because there was no wind. So most of the time we motored around on the small harbour motor.
I'm sure most people will have heard of this group of Islands off the Queensland coast. My impression before going out was that they were a small set of pure little white sand spots in the ocean. It turns out that they are much bigger than I had imagined, mostly incorporating large areas of vegetation, but with equal beauty.
The trip was a lot of fun, with some great food and a trip to the fabulous Whitehaven beach
02. Setting sail on the first day
. On the second night we spent hours watching over the side of the boat in the dark as we tried to entice Squid and then fish to our hook. The hope was that we could maybe get some Reef Sharks to come in, but alas, the biggest they got was about half a metre. One unfortunate soul (or is it 'sole', bum bum!) ended up on the onboard Barbie next morning. Can't get much fresher than that.We were able to jump ship a couple of times and go snorkelling on the reef and this was fantastic. Its a shame that I can't show you any pictures of what I could see. The reef is home to such an array of multi-coloured marine life. I was swimming amongst fish that were orange, green, black, blue, stripy, spotty, big and small...I think I even found Nemo if anyone's still looking!
Perhaps the best moment for me though was a Stingray that suddenly appeared below me. When you dive below the waves and swim holding your breath, everything becomes so quiet, no splashing of flippers or breathing through the tube, you just glide around over the reef. And this is just what I did at this moment, chasing a Ray over and round the jutting plantlife just a few yards in his trail. An amazing sight and an amazing feeling...
