The trip to the Whitsundays.
When originally trying to figure out something to do, we
thought about driving some portion of the north eastern coast. That quickly dropped out due to time and
money limitations. But in its place,
Ruthie came up with a 2.5 day sailing trip in/around the Whitsunday
islands. Shortly after I got here, the
Whitsundays [iconic for their white sand and vibrant blue waters] were quickly
recommended and flagged as a place to go and see. And so arrangements were made. We were to fly our way to Airlie Beach [well,
fly to Proserpine [via Brisbane] then bus to Airlie Beach], clamber on board a
boat and then sail around for two and a half days. Upon our return, we’d make our way into a
hotel for the evening and then fly our way back to Melbourne.
First off, it was wet season off the shore of Queensland. Granted, our timeline was forced a bit by
fitting it into SueSue’s visit, but we either went to the Great
Barrier Reef during Shark Season, Jellyfish Season, Wet Season, or
Tourist Season. I think [cyclones aside]
wet season might’ve worked out just fine for us.
Second, I think Queensland’s
version of cold is 60°F. I’m too lazy to
look up the details, but really, it’s the land of warm winters and hot, sticky
summers. [From what I understand the
reason Tourist Season exists is because southern Queensland has those perfect 80°F days and
bright blue skies for multiple days in a row.]
This meant that despite the fact that it was wet season, the
temperatures were still fairly high.
This also meant that the water was quite warm. As in the air temperature would be 26°C and
the water would be 28°C – so you were better off in the water while it rained
anyways.
The downside to it being the rainy season: lack of brilliant
light illuminating everything.
The upside to the lack of sun, we didn’t immediately turn
into lobsters. This silver lining was
further supported by the fact that when the sun did eventually burn off the
clouds on the last day as we were headed back, it also managed to burn us
despite our sunscreen.
So let me get the whinging over with first. At this point in time, I no longer feel the
urge to spend multiple nights on a boat in weather that produces choppy
water. While I didn’t actually get sea
sick, I came close, and it wasn’t fun.
And Ruthie got even closer when she made the mistake of going below deck
to our room for a bit while we were passing through some waves. Also, I ended up with a pretty sleepless
night the first night on the boat. It
was hot and humid in our room with little ventilation. I don’t particularly remember there being a
lot of rocking motion to the boat, but I definitely had my first insight into
what it’s like being an insomniac. The
rainy season also meant everyone was crammed into the little tiny sections of
the boat that were covered. So after
dinner, while everyone was being social, it also meant hot and sticky
confines. Which, combined with the lack
of sleep [I also slept very little the night before we left due to nerves]
meant that I ended up missing out on the drunken bonding that happened the
second night we were anchored. Oh well.
So that said, everything else was pretty awesome. The adventure started with Ruthie and me
riding the netting of the catamaran through the first “storm” we hit. Mainly it was just rain and wind [or the
speed of the boat]. We ruined our books
by doing this and because of the high humidity it also meant one set of our
clothes were unusable for two days, but it was well worth it. The first mate prepared all our meals for us,
and I have to say that I was quite impressed with the food choice and
quality. I don’t know exactly what I
expected, but for being on a boat with 10 other people, it was quite the
spread.
The second day we snorkelled, did some stand-up paddle
boarding, and snorkelled some more. When
we finally anchored for the late afternoon / evening, Ruthie and I took out the
clear-bottomed canoe and tried to see things.
We were fairly unsuccessful in seeing much more than water, rocks, and
some reef life [this is where the lack of bright, direct light comes in], but
it was still worth the effort. The
stand-up paddle boarding was pretty exciting.
It was something I’d wanted to attempt for a while, and it was the
captain’s mandate that we all give it a go.
After a fair amount of complaining from some of the other passengers
about fears and possible lack of ability, in the end, everyone got out, and we
had quite the parade along the coast of one of the islands. The second day also had us set foot on land
for a while. We hiked up to a lookout,
and then back down to the squeaky white sand of a beach while the tide was
out. While traipsing through the forest
to the lookout, I managed to spot the biggest spider [sorry Mom] I’ve ever seen
– like the size of my hand fully stretched out or even bigger. We were later informed that it was called a
golden orb, and while it was creepy, I wouldn’t claim it was particularly scary. The furry ones are scary. This one was just a skinny body with
amazingly long legs.
The third morning we woke up to sunshine peeking between the
clouds and the rocks [Butterfly
Bay was pretty enclosed –
maybe 80% land and just the one way in and out]. We departed for another bit of the islands
for our tactical turtle drop. “Tactical
turtle drop” was a phrase used by one of the other captains as he returned to
his boat via dinghy from dropping his passengers in the water. Apparently turtles frequented the area we
were snorkelling, and so chances were high we might spot some. Backing up a bit, we’d managed to see about 5
turtles or so from the boat. A couple of
times we sailed right over them. And
when we stopped for the second night, we spotted one surface a couple times
about 15 yards off to one side of the boat.
But our tactical turtle drop was specifically geared to spotting some
whilst snorkelling. Ruthie and I started
off by swimming one direction along the shore and seeing lots more fishies, but
it was apparently the wrong direction because some of our co-passengers
informed us they’d seen one down the shore in the other direction. Before we made it that way, though, we went
across the sandbar to the really shallow water and watched several little
sharks swimming about.
Let’s pause a moment and revel in that. Sharks.
Granted, not great white sharks or man eaters by any means, but we were
swimming right next to a handful of small reef sharks.
I’d also like to take this moment of pause to discuss
Ruthie’s [ir]rational fear of jelly fish.
On one hand, I can almost agree with her – or at least I can see where
she’s coming from with her fear. They
are pretty bizarre looking, and in this section of the world, they are
lethal. On the other hand, it was very
entertaining to watch her freak out, so I could help but laugh and mock her
slightly. Seriously, I think if we’d
seen more than one jelly fish coming our way at once, she’d’ve gotten up and run
on the water back to the boat. [Fortunately,
we only saw them one at a time … although at one point, two of those
one-at-a-times came pretty close to each other, and Ruthie nearly broke plane
swimming back to shore.]
Back to our tactical turtle drop. Not only did we see some turtles, but we swam
with two of them. I can only describe
them as little and big. And
awesome. And much to Ruthie’s pleasure,
we watched one of them eat a jelly fish, only furthering her love for these
fantastic and dinosauric creatures. Let
me point out that while we were snorkelling in Hawaii, we missed out on seeing
turtles. Apparently one was spotted, but
it was a bit further away, and only a silhouette was observed. So a turtle spotting was high on the want
list for this trip. So, heeding the
advice of our co-passengers, we tried swimming in direction B from our tactical
turtle drop, and before we knew it, we were swimming right over two of
them. They only stayed together for a
few minutes before they split and went different directions. But in that initial time, I managed to grab a
few pictures [thank you GoPro], and Ruthie swam down close to them, and
actually touched one on his/her shell.
After they split, Ruthie followed the big one, and I followed the little
one. I had passed off the camera to Ruthie
before this happened, and I kind of wish I had gotten it back [but there wasn’t
time]. Ruthie was having a hard time
keeping up with her turtle, but mine was just being pretty leisurely as s/he
swam away from me. In the process, the
sun managed to break through the thin clouds that had formed just at the same
moment that the turtle surfaced. So
right in front of me I had the classic picture of a turtle with all his/her
appendages out, brightly lit so all his/her colours were showing, on a
brilliantly turquoise blue background.
It’s hard to follow up with the excitement of the turtles,
and so I won’t ramble too much longer.
But, we managed to set foot on shore again safely, get our shoes and
flip flops back [the first mate took them from us as we got on the boat the
first day], and head to our hotel. For
being something that Ruthie found on the cheap, we were all floored with how
awesome it was. One, it was an apartment
style, so separate bed rooms, a kitchen, a living room, and a
washer/dryer. Two, it was up high enough
that it provided a fantastic view out over the little bit of land that was
between us and the water, and then out off past Airlie Beach. Even after SueSue complained about the height
of the hill we had to climb to get to the hotel, she had to admit it was worth
the hike. The washer/dryer was a
blessing in their own because while we had all done fairly well to keep at
least one set of clothes dry for our return trip, most of our stuff stunk something
awful. Clean sheets, clean clothes,
delivered pizza, a hot shower, air conditioning, and a great view combined for
a perfect way to wrap up our Whitsundays adventure.
-EP
seriously.... cool story bro.
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