Whit Sunday Islands

Well, on the day of the trip, we were running a little late and thought we were gonna miss it, everyone else had gone on ahead and so we couldn't find the boat as there were hundreds of them there and we hadn't a clue what to look for. Eventually, after getting some directions (yes I know, men asking for directions, what next), we found it and jumped aboard. Running to catch the boat was made all that more difficult by the fact that we had 2 big cases of beers, and some other drinks too.

Knowing that we were slightly prone to sea sickness, we had already bought ourselves some sea-sick tablets in the chemist the day before and they absolutley worked a treat.

On the first day, we just headed out to where we were going to anchor for the night, as the boat only left about 4pm. After that, we had our dinner, and of course, opened some cans and started the party nice and early. There were two groups on the boat really, the Irish, and the other Europeans which included some Germans, French and an Austrian. The Irish girls were the first to crack open the beers, followed closely by myself and Jay of course. But the others were very reluctant and sat quietly in the corner talking amongst themselves. After a little while there was some mixing of people but not much. We didnt really stay up late that night but we had a good laugh with the girls so we still managed to have a good night.

Unfortunately, we were rudely awoken by the raising of the anchor the next morning, which literally was pulled up right beside our bed and made a frighteningly loud noise waking me up with fear at.....wait for it.......6am. This was not nice. After the noise had passed, I was looking forward to getting back asleep but the crew came around and dragged everybody out of their beds. Breakfast was cereal and toast and then at about 7:30 in the morning, the boat came to a stop at one of the islands. The place we were at was called White Haven Beach. We were told this was the 4th nicest beach in the whole world, and having seen it now, I would not try to argue that. It was continuous white sand as far as the eye could see, with crystal clear water. It being so early in the morning, after a quick swim, everybody just crashed on the beach and done a little sun bathing. We had about 2 hours there before we had to head back to the boat so it was really nice.

When we got back to the boat, we headed off for our next destination, which was where the diving was going to take place. We were doing another intro dive here. The beach they dropped us at was all stoney and not the most comfortable for hanging about on so we got our gear on, and got into the sea pretty much straight away. The dive was pretty amazing again, not quite as amazing as up in Cairns but we did see a lot of cool fish there too. I had a couple of panic moments on this one though as my mask filled up a few times and blinded me causing me to rush for the surface.

After the dive, we done some more snorkling, which I think is my preferred method for seeing the reef as its a lot less scary. It was cool there again and we saw lots of fish. There was a guy in a boat there throwing food around us so that the fish would come in really close to us.

After this, we set off again to where we were going to anchor for the night. Again, the Irish girls were the first to craic open the beers along with us. We had a couple of hours before dinner was served and then after dinner, the other group began to break out their beers. There was still a lot of segregation so the crew decided that drinking games was the way to sort this out. We all moved inside for a bit to the table and played a few different drinking games there. What they involved was everybody giving out a certain number of drinks to everyone else, depending on what cards you held in your hand. At first, their group kept making us drink and so we got revenge when we could, but eventually everyone warmed up to everyone else and we all got along great in the end.

Back out on deck then, the crew had a game for us to play which involved picking up a box from the ground with your mouth without using your hands at all (not even to touch the ground). Jason fell on the first attempt, and I only lasted a couple more but the crew being experts kept going for a long long time and were in the end, picking up a tiny bit of cardboard from the deck and still not even falling over. It was hilarious.

The captain had a guitar with him too and he took that out for a little while and played a few tunes for us all to sing along to. I think I probably did most of the singing, being drunk and all, I didnt really care how bad it sounded. But they all cheered in the end so it was great craic. The Irish girls had some crazy drinking songs too, some of them even had actions and they had us all up doing them, even the crew. It was so funny, boat moving, everyone pissed, and trying to do some crazy dance that we were learning for the first time.

Eventually people began drifting off to bed, it must have been after 1 at this stage and we were to be up by 7. But of course the trusty Irish didnt start wilting until about 3 or 3:30. The captain came back on deck then to see that we were ok and when he found out we had run out of beer.....no, he didnt send us to bed, he got us some more. So J went off to bed about 4 and myself and one of the other girls managed to make it until 4:30 before the eye lids got too heavy. The captain had let us put on our iPod through their speakers toward the end of the night so we got to choose whatever music we wanted to listen to and that was great too.

The next morning, we were all woken up early again, not by the anchor this time but by the crew as breakfast was served again. The weather that day was terrible. It was pouring down and the wind was really strong too. We were not looking forward to being left on a beach for a couple of hours but the crew would not let us stay on the boat as they had to clean it with acid and stuff.

So they ferried us over to another stoney beach that morning, and we all sat there hung over, with our towels wrapped around us, really not wanting to be there. A couple of people were doing another dive that day so they didnt mind as much, but the rest of us looked none too happy. Eventually, after about 40 mins, the crew began to feel sorry for us and brought us back onto the boat and into the comfort of our beds.

We headed back for port, had a spot of lunch on the boat again, but the weather was too bad to enjoy anything else that day. We got back about 2pm and everybody went their seperate ways. I then realised, I had caught a bit of a cold on the boat so ran to the chemist again before checking back into Magnums.