Days Ten to Twelve
After a nice couple of days chilling out by the pool at the campsite, we were ready to take on the Whitsundays!
I think the best way to do it if you have a lot of time is charter a sailing boat for a week or so and pootle about, but we didn't have quite that long, and also the outcome of me and Layth being co-in-charge of a boat for a week is more likely to be drowning than anything else. So.
Whilst we were here we did manage to get to quite a few islands -
Daydream island was the first - this one is quite small and is mostly a resort, but has 2 lovely beaches, including lovers cove, which was stunning. They also have a living reef around the resort, so we saw them feeding the manta rays and reef sharks! The beach isn't sand, it's made entirely of bits of coral that have broken off from the Great Barrier Reef and been washed up here.
Next was Hamilton Island where the main criteria for holidaying there seemed to be 1. Have a black AmEx, 2. own a large yacht 3. be very Rah, darling.
The harbour was beautiful, and there were lots of posh art galleries along the harbour side - the photography one particularly good.
Whitsunday Island is the biggest one, I think, and we went right around it, stopping at Whitehaven Bay, where the sand is so fine, and very white against the turquoise sea. Layth made a sandcastle.
Because it's "stinger season" (or Jellyfish season), theres a risk of "excruciating pain and or death" if you get stung by some kinds of jellyfish (why oh why does EVERYTHING in Australia seem to want to kill you all the time?!)..... so we had to wear "stinger suits" which are basically wet suits, with hoods, gloves and socks attatched, and it goes over your chin, so one looks like a ninja. There is photographic evidence, but clearly that is not going on here. Was utterly hilarious when Layth did a sideways "crab dance" in his though. Ludicrous.
Today we went out to the Great Barrier Reef - it was honestly the best thing I have ever done in my life!
We went out on a catamaran to a pontoon on the edge of the reef, then spent about 4 hours there, and despite it being an organised tour, it was pretty relaxed and everyone did their own thing.
The first thing we did there was go in a semi-submersible submarine type affair, which I used mainly as a scoping out tool to see if I could see any scary animals before getting in the water!
They also had a sort of underwater viewing room underneath the pontoon, sort of like a reverse aquarium - there were shoals of fish everywhere!
But by FAR the best bit was snorkelling over the reef.
I was a bit nervous (for obvious australian ocean related reasons), but we got our wetsuits, flippers and masks on, and flapped down to the water.
The pontoon was a little way off the edge of the reef, so you had to swim over a deep water bit to get to the reef, and this bit was a little scary. Too deep to see the bottom, and quite large fish (about a metre long) around and about!
But it was totally worth it. The reef was absolutely stunning. The reef itself was about 1.5metres down, and there were multicolour tropical fish all around you, not just underneath, loads of them! And they weren't scared of people at all, just darted about right up close.
We snorkelled along the very edge of the reef for about 500m - the drop off was straight down into the blue, and went down further than you could see.
Layth did scare me a bit at one point - he sort of grabbed my hand and pointed up, so we both surfaced, and he goes "I've been bit!", at which point I went head down, flippers splashing, back towards the pontoon, save yourselves style...... only to be stopped again by Layth, who then pointed to what can only be described as a sardine - "that fish bit me!". To be fair, it left a mark and everything!
The boat trip back was sunny and stunning, see sunset evidence below.
Tomorrow we are on the road again, will update soon.
xxxxx Sarah and Layth xxxxx
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