Adventures in Sailing

After we left you last, we made our way down to the Whitsunday Islands. They are 74 islands off the coast of Australia and are the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. We boarded the boat along with 27 passengers and 3 crew members including the skipper and 2 dunnies. We first began by sailing out to the middle of paradise while sitting dangling our feet on the high side of the boat- NOT the sui-side. Some people got a try at rigging up the sails but we just watched and enjoyed the sun and views- AND sunk a few. We docked the boat that night and watched the sunset and praised the lord for our good fortune. We were so lucky to be in this beautiful place and with so many fun mates.

That night we partied the night away safely docked in calm seas with a mild temperature of close to 95 degrees F. But wait- next is the part of how we slept on this 76ft old racing yacht. We drank enough from the eskys to make the accomodations look luxurious and then awoke to skipper saying "waky waky" as drool and sweat pooled around us. There was nothing else to do at 6:30am but to get up and enjoy the views. ALL TOTALLY WORTH IT. Valiant attempts were made by Amy and Shelly (jenn as well but had a towel incident) to sleep on the deck itself, but rainstorms halted this and forced them inside to the sweaty bunks. Please note, jenn and marissa shared one sweaty bunk- BOTH nights.

The day consisted of breakfast and 2 different snorkel sites. It was our first chance to check out the reef up close while wearing the very sexy full body stinger suits made of lycra. photos to come. The highlights included ( others in sexy stinger suits) huge jelly fish, turtles, cool fish, awesome coral and lots of lycra. We sailed on to the lookout over the famous whitehaven beach (look it up) which was breathtaking. We hiked back down and docked for our second night at the famous beach where we all looked like aliens swimming and playing beach rugby in our lycra. We are still not sure if this is a ploy to identify tourists. The crew delivered us nachos on the beach via dingy and we spent the afternoon nashing.

The last night consisted of steak dinner and some people (JENN and MICHELLE) opted to participate in super soaker TWISTER on board the ship. pictures again to follow. After lots of seawater in the face, they settled on victory. We then watched fish jumping beside the boat, turtles eating jelly fish and the sunset. The stars in this area were amazing and we all layed on the edge again looking for the big dipper but then got confused due to the southern hemisphere factor. Again, we all ventured to the bunks to sweat and sleep and Amy and Shelly slept on the deck beside jumping fish.

We awoke again to "waky waky" and pouring rain and zero wind to sail. We donned the yellow Gordan Fisherman raincoats and proceeded to witness the perfect storm aboard the Sexy Broomstick back to the Long Island resort (look it up). FOr a brief hot second, we hit wind- strong wind- and we were so happy that this only lasted for like 15 minutes. We had experienced sailing at its best. And, finished off the trip with sun, a great lunch, and a motorized and personal dropoff at the Long Island Resort where our next adventures began.