We’re finally back from our 3-day, 3-night cruise through the Whitsundays, and though Drew and I are both a bit dirty and disheveled, I think there’s really only one word we can use to describe our trip – amazing (although, we could also use the words astonishing, beautiful, relaxing, wonderful… you get the point).  I’ll try my best, though, to put our trip into just a few more words.

After spending the day relaxing in Airlie Beach (we had to check out of our hostel at 10am, so we were kind of just wandering around at that point) we headed down to the docks around 4pm to catch a late lunch/early dinner (although, I think this was actually the worst dinner we’ve had all trip, so if you’re ever in the Whitsundays, don’t eat at the Italian place near the Airlie Beach dock).  At 6:45pm on the dot, we arrived at Gloria’s café, the place where we were to meet our group for departure.  We could even see our boat – The Anaconda III, our new home for the next 3 days and eves – out yonder.

As soon as we walked onto the ship, we were greeted by a friendly staff of 8 and a glass of champagne (mind you, this would be the only beverage we’d have that didn’t come out of a box or can all weekend).  One staff member gave Drew and I a tour of the boat (which took all of 3 minutes), then dropped us off at our cabin to get situated.  Now, I’m not gonna lie, our cabin was pretty (ok, really) tiny, but we figured we wouldn’t be spending much time in there anyway.  Soon enough, we were off, and Drew and I watched from the top deck of the boat as Airlie Beach got smaller and smaller.

That first night, we sailed for a few hours then docked at Hook Passage to sleep.  Our aircon was broken that night for some reason, which made our cabin pretty miserable (it miraculously fixed itself the next day, which was nice) but we tried our best to catch a few z’s.  The breakfast bell woke us up bright and early (I didn’t realize how early until I glanced at Drew’s watch after breakfast and it was only 7am) and we were already on our way to our first location, Tongue Bay.  Tongue Bay is the gateway to the famous Whitehaven Beach, so I was pretty anxious to arrive.  We docked around 8:30am and a dingy took us up to the shore.  We had two hours to walk around, view the beach from the lookout point, and hang out on the beautiful Whitehaven sand (it was even more beautiful than I had even imagined).

At 10:30am, we hopped back on the boat and headed to our next destination – Luncheon Bay.  Now, before I signed up to go on this trip, I did expect to snorkel, but since I am not scuba certified I never dreamt I’d ever scuba on this trip.  So it was much to my surprise that, when we docked at this Bay, the two scuba instructors on board told us they’d give all of us who weren’t scuba certified a mini crash-course in scuba diving.  I was in group 4, so I grabbed a snorkel and pair of flippers and hopped into the ocean to snorkel a bit before it was my group’s turn to scuba.

Summertime in Northern Australia is well-known for having plenty of one thing – jelly fish.  Most jellies are relatively harmless, however there is one species of jelly fish whose sting is often fatal – the Chironex Fleckeri jelly fish, more commonly known as box jelly fish, and they only stray to the Northern Coast of Australia during the summer when the water is warm.  Had I have known this before booking our trip to the Whitsundays, I may have reconsidered, but needless to say I was terrified of jellies.  So terrified that when I saw a group of harmless jelly apples floating in the water (these are jelly fish without stingers) I refused to get in the water.  But one of the crew members assured me the jelly apples were harmless, and if I did happen to come across a stinging jelly fish, the stinger suits we were required to wear when swimming in the water would more or less protect me from their stings.  So reluctantly, I jumped into the sea.  The water was a bit rough at this bay (and I was still a bit scared of the jellies), so after a few minutes of trying to fight the waves I got out and patiently waited my turn to scuba.

Soon enough, one of the crew members signaled to my group that it was our turn to scuba.  We put on all our gear and formed a tight knit circle while our instructor, Roger, explained to us the three most important rules to remember (“never stop breathing,” the number one most important rule, followed by a few key hand signals).  Then he Roger let out the air in our vests that was keeping us afloat, and the weights on our belts took over and pulled us under the water.  At first, scuba diving was very odd, and my first reaction was to swim right back up to the shore, but then I figured, “if everyone else did it, why can’t I?”  We stayed under water for 20 minutes or so, still in our tight little circle, while we went around our small group of 4 and practiced some of things Roger taught us above water.  Soon enough, we were finished with our brief lesson, which meant that later on in our trip we could try to scuba for real!

After spending a few hours in Luncheon Bay, we got back on the boat, ate lunch and headed to our next destination – Mackeral Bay, right off the coast of Hook Island.  These waters, unlike the rough waters at our former location, were nice and calm, and of course, beautiful.  Here, Drew and I decided we’d snorkel for a bit.  I was still a bit scared of the jellies, but to my relief there weren’t many jellies hanging out at Mackeral Bay.  I absolutely loved snorkeling around this bay – there were so many beautiful and interesting fish, and the reef was absolutely stunning.  At one point, Drew and I had drifted into somewhat deep waters, so I took out my snorkel and started swimming around to the bottom.  All of a sudden, Drew started yelling at me under water, but he was just far enough away for me not to hear him.  So when I came up to catch a breath before swimming back down again, I took a look around and saw Drew swimming in the other direction, away from me.  “That’s quite odd,” I thought, at which point he looked back at me and yelled “shark!”  Of course I thought he was teasing (as scared as I am of jellies, I think Drew is even more terrified of sharks), but realized he was not when he turned around and frantically started swimming again.  So I followed, and when we were far enough away Drew told me that I had been swimming right next to a shark, parallel to and a few feet away from it, that was just about my size.  But I was obliviously looking in the other direction, so I didn’t even notice.  That was enough to get Drew out of the water, so we hopped back on to the boat and relaxed until dinner.

The next day, our boat left Mackeral Bay very early in the morning as we continued to sleep, so once we awoke (again, sometime around 7am) we were nearly to our next destination.  After breakfast, we arrived at Bait Reef where we were to spend the entire day and night.  We read our books for a bit (I had already finished one book and was halfway through Moneyball, at this point) and once the heat was too much to bear we hopped into the water for another snorkel.  Not being near a beach, this bay was much deeper than the others, but it was situated right along the Great Barrier Reef, so there were tons of neat things to look at.  There was even a group of very large fish that hung right around the boat, so we enjoyed watching as the crew threw pieces of chicken right next to snorkelers and the fish jump right up to get them (and we were secretly thankful it wasn’t us in the water at that point!)

After lunch, Drew and I both decided we’d scuba dive.  We figured we should do it at least once on our trip because, after all, when else would we have the opportunity to scuba dive through the Great Barrier Reef? (Especially without a scuba license).  Soon enough, it was my turn (Drew went with a different, more experienced group, since he does technically have his license, even though the date of his last dive was in ’03).  We geared up, and Roger took me and 3 others out to sea.  I surprisingly wasn’t the least bit nervous to scuba for real, although I really can’t describe the feeling I felt once Roger took the air out of my vest and watched as I drifted down to the bottom of the sea (which, this time, was a much further drop than our scuba training session).  I all of a sudden became very nervous, but I just remembered to focus on my breathing, and soon enough it felt natural enough to possibly enjoy.  Soon enough, our whole group was down under water (we went to about 30 feet under, which is all we were allowed to do as unlicensed divers) and we scubad around, checking out the reef and underwater life for about 40 minutes.  It was so quiet and peaceful swimming around under the sea, only turning to our groupmates to signal when we’ve spotted something worth looking at (we didn’t see anything terribly exciting, although Roger did scare a sting ray into swimming out from his cave, which was pretty cool) but I did thoroughly enjoy the experience.

We hung out at Mackeral Bay the rest of the day and evening, and very early in the morning (while we were all still asleep) our boat departed for Blue Pearl Bay, otherwise known as fish bay.  It’s known as fish bay for one very good reason – there are TONS of fish swimming around this bay!  Drew and I put on our snorkel gear one last time and, again, jumped in.  The fish were, indeed, beautiful (and everywhere) and we had a lot of fun watching them all swim around and eat the coral.

After our morning snorkel, Drew and I grabbed our books and sunscreen once more as our boat headed back to Airlie Beach.  Overall, we had a fantastic time, and this was just the relaxing break in our busy trip we needed.  The boat was fun, the food was decent, and we had a great time!  We visited the pubs in Airlie Beach one last time that night (and we did manage to snab free pizza deals at, not one, but two different bars – apparently it was free pizza Friday?) and then hopped on our plane to Brisbane.  Only 6 more days left for us to enjoy Australia!