The Whitsundays

Chrissy Jenna and I at Beaches the night before we all embarked on our sailing adventures! Jenna was going on a 3 day 2 night cruise with a friend from Queensland, but we got to spend more time with her in Airlie which was nice! Someone else took pictures this night, but I don't know who. Once I locate those pictures, they will be added as well. Our night in Airlie was a rough one. We got to the hostel kind of early and weren't allowed to check in for another 2 hours. We killed as much time as we could walking around the tiny beach town and finally were allowed to check in. It took us close to 30 minutes to actually find our room, and when we did we were not impressed. We had a 6 share with 3 other people who had been living there a week. They were here traveling from Ireland (Galway in fact!) and were leaving for a Whitsundays trip the following Thursday. They were nice, but seemed to want to keep to themselves so we did the same. After a long day of shopping (I got a new bathing suit FINALLY) we cleaned up and headed out for dinner. We ended up staying at the same bar we had dinner at for the rest of the night. There was a guy there playing live music, and I have to admit he was pretty damn good. We had a good time there, but called it a night kind of early because we had to be up early the next day. After a horrible nights sleep on a top bunk of a broken metal bunkbed in a sticky, dirty room, we headed off to meet our boat....
Running into Jenna while sailing (the boat above is hers, not ours). Can you believe that? This was actually at the end of our first day... Below are the pictures from the time out on the boat. We started the sailing trip with a long walk to the marina where we were to find our boat. We took off our shoes and boarded the ship. The wind wasn't too good the first day so we didn't get much sailing in then. We first headed to Whitehaven Beach (pictures are below) and spent a few hours there. I could have spent the rest of my life there. The sand is 98% silicon and felt like baby powder. The water, like everywhere else, was crystal clear (not as much when we were there because of the rain). After leaving Whitehaven we sailed over to where we would be anchored for the night. From there we had a delicious dinner prepared for us and drank the night away. In true Megan fashion, I was the first one on the boat to start drinking, and the drunkest one there. We all had a blast though. Some people went to bed, but we stayed up playing drinking games with a girl from South Africa, a guy from South America, 3 other Americans, a few Irish girls, and 2 guys from some part of Eastern Europe (I forgot where). Turns out, most drinking games are universal. It was a blast. When we finally called it a night most of us had decided to sleep on the top deck under the stars instead of inside where it was stuffy and hot. We woke up early the next morning and sailed over to a part of the reef where Chrissy Laura and I got to do an intro dive. Snorkeling was included in the price of the trip, but since we had already done that in Cairns we decided to pay a little more and scuba dive this time. We got 30 minutes with an instructor to do an intro dive. I was so excited, but I have to admit it might have been the scariest thing I did on this trip. As soon as I went underwater the first time to start exploring the reef I panicked and came back up. Sadly, the instructor wasn't very patient with us. I decided I needed to get ahold of myself because i WAS NOT backing out of this, and just did it. I am SO glad I did. Visibility wasn't the best that day because of the rain, but it was still an amazing experience. I want to get certified one day. Possibly in Thailand because I heard its cheap and you can see some amazing stuff. We got really lucky and got to see a fish that the certified divers didn't even get a chance to see. I don't remember its name, nor did I understand it thanks to the Australian accents, but I think it's something like the Maury Ray. I'm sure Laura will comment at the bottom of this correcting me, so just look out for the correct name of the fish. The dive was a little depressing. The instructor wasn't careful about hereslf or us hitting the coral, so you could tell it was getting pretty beat up. When we snorkled in Cairns they made sure we didnt touch anything, and the coral looked a lot more taken care of up there. In the Whitsundays we saw a lot of broken dead coral laying at the bottom of the sea. I REALLY wanted to take a peice, it was already broken, but I decided the fines just weren't worth the riske After we finished our dive in the reef we headed over to another beach where anyone who wanted to was allowed to snorkel one last time. We opted out of that mainly because of how much we hated the damn stingers the last time we tried it. The rest of the day was spent relaxing on the boat in the sun. Until the rain came. Like clockwork, the rain came and our skipper decided he wanted to race another boat that was heading back to harbour at the same time as we were. I forgot to mention our boat was once a sailing vessel and known as the fastest boat on the Whitsundays. Obviously, we smoked them. The sail wasn't so fun though. I had looked forward to a relaxing time back but instead found myself clinging to one side of the ship in the pouring rain trying to stay on board. I had a blast though, and it was another thing I can now say I got to do. All in all, a sucessful trip, but I think we all agreed we were glad not to have to stay on there another night.
sunsetting
me and chrissy
the gang at sunset
i want so many pictures i took on this trip framed.

a wonderful day for sailing the coral sea
heading back to the hammer!
rain forest walk
i didnt want to leave
so beautiful
having too much fun
we take a lot of these pictures...
trying out the underwater camera!
stinger suits. so flattering!!
the whole boat (minus the crew)
Whitehaven Beach
This is in the rain... imagine it in the sun.
The worlds 3rd prettiest beach. What are the other 2 you ask? Who gives a shit I wasn't at those beaches!
Literally took my breath away the first time I saw it.

playing kings. i have no idea what we did to this poor man who didnt speak very good english.
i was 100% the drunkest one of the boat. proud mom and dad?
i also spilled my wine and ruined this sheet. i later spilled my wine all over the new 150,00 dollar white paint job and if the skipper hadnt washed it off, i would have ruined the boat as well. PROUD MOM AND DAD?
sunset
so pretty
the boat we raced the second day. kicked their ASSES!
us falling off the side of the boat. if i wasn't familiar with sailing i would have been terrified! (notice how im hanging on!!)
chrissy hoped i would fall right over the side. i probably would have died from the fall, so i'm glad i didn't.
Everyone trying to stay on board while racing back to harbour.
where we snorkled. i'm so pissed we didn't take any pictures in our scuba gear!
Fishys!
Eating the bread I fed him!
Our skipper threw some bread to the fish and they started swimming around us. They were harmless, but I was- clearly -petrified.
Chrissy and I holding a life ring avoiding the stingers waiting for our turn to scuba. Do not be fooled by the smiles, we were not happy campers.
Reef! Thank god for this camera! I wasn't able to take any of our actual dive because we dove to about 8 meters and the camera only allows me to take it 3. Sorry!
Laura TERRIFIED of the stingers. The only parts of our suits that didnt cover our bodies were the hands. I got stung twice.
Reef!
The Hammer.
Our room, which we chose not to sleep in.

Chrissy and I on deck where we spent the night. It was so nice to fall asleep and wake up to.

After leaving the ship on day 2 we headed back into town and killed some time until our second overnight greyhound trip. This one was picking us up at 8:25pm and not getting into Hervey Bay until 9:30 am. We had lunch (McDonalds), got our things, and headed to the bus stop. The ride was pretty boring since it was over night, and when I woke up, we were in Hervey Bay...