whitsundays

Fri 07.12 - Out of bed at 10am. Wandered around town for a few hours. This seems to be the first real resort type place we have been in. I bought new swimming shorts (last one went missing). Had luch at hostel. Chatted to two aussie fellas. One of them, Tony, is actually the dive instructor on the New Horizon (the boat that were going out in tomorrow). We went down to the lagoon in the evening Its like the rockpool in Townsville. Chatted to fella from Dungannon. Said he know a 50/60 year old man called Girvan who runs a boxing club! Any one you know Claire and Paul? Beans and Toast for dinners and then bed about 11pm

Sat 08.12 - Checkd out and chatted to Tony at lunch. Bought 24 deck of beer and head down to harbour at 3.30pm. We set sail at 4.30pm. There were 30 people pn the boat, plus crew. Quite a few people felt queezy. We stopped in a sheltered bay and everybody just chilled out, listened to music, had a few beers. There were 6 other Irish on the boat so the craic was good. Below deck where our bunks were was pretty hot, but we managed to sleep.

Sun 09.12 - Breakfast served at 6.45am. Then it was off to Whitsunday Island. We walked to Whitehaven beach. Oh my God!!! It is without doubt, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. Turquoise waters and white sands, heaven on earth. Lying on Whitehaven Beach at 8.30am on a Sunday morning, life just doesn't get better than this! Back in boat by 10am and we went to the first dive site. Suited up in our gear. Claire and I were quite nervous as this was our first dive on our own. We went in backwards off a dinghy, fun!! Down we went. Claire had problems with her mask filling up so we had to come to the surface a few times. The visibility was only 3-4 metres, but there was plenty of coral to see and tropical fish. We spent 25 minutes in the water and made our way to the beach. We hung about on the beach for the afternoon.

It was then back to the boat for dinner. We had great craic that night with 3 English fellas and an Irish crowd. Hello to Tim, Nick, Joe, Don, Dermot, Mag and Mags. Plenty of beer (I was paranoid the crew was drinking mine) and even a little Christy Moore!!

Mon 10.12 - Up 7am. Brekkie and then off to Ravens Cove for our second dive. Only Claire and I and 2 Swedish girls went for this dive. It was brilliant. The Dive master, Tony (who we met in the hostel) took us on a guided dive. Absolutely loads of fish and the coral was great, really colourful and there were different forms of it. We had to come up after 25 mins as I was running out of air. Our first dive was free and this one was 25 dollars. What a bargain!

We then cruised back to Airlie Beach arriving at 2pm. The Irish crowd gave us a lift to town. We caught bus to Hervey Bay at 6.30pm. The seats on the bus were so hard and we had to spend the next 12 hours there!