Sailing The Whitsundays

After a 4 hour wait at Brisbane Airport, Eric and Aaron joined forces with the one and only, Chad 'Deez nuts' Zdenek, looking fit as ever. Must have been from all the training he did that one day.

We were really excited to meet up with Chad, spice things up a bit, and see what kind of sailing genes we had in us. We made it to Magnums Backpackers in Airlie Beach for some pre-sailing preparation and partying. We spent a ridiculous amount of money on groceries but we figured the likelihood of being marooned was pretty good. So more food was better than less since collectively we had about 4 minutes of sailing experience.

We occasionally had to deal with some wicked wind, high seas, and a bit of confusion about sailing techniques. But thanks to Bryan and his guidance thru the adventurous seas, rather than sailing the safer routes, we found ourselves enjoying beautiful bays and lagoons completely to ourselves. On a few occasions we were the only boat heading into the treacherous weather in order to seek salvation on abandoned islands. The pay off was grand to say the least. We did manage to maneuver around the weather really well. On two occasions we were seemingly the only boat enjoying the rays of Australia's golden sun.

We started our tour with a 2 hour boating lesson from Ian The Great and for some unknown reason, after the lessons, which, to varrying degrees, we did not fully understand, he couldn't get away from us fast enough. Aaron sent him off in the dingy and he ran off, as if he knew the weather was about to turn and he didn't want to get caught in it. So, just like that, the three stouges had the vessel to themselves, for better or for worse.

We headed up to the northern islands of Hayman, Landford, One foot island, and eventually anchored on the north side of Hook Island. Having first landed on Landford island, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to take a few great Corona pics. Soon after that decided the circumnavigating of the island was in good order. The south side of the island was completely covered in coral remains. A beach in the making, the calm waters of the Pacific were slowly breaking down this oceanside cemetary. We eventually hit a cliffside rock section of the island, one that either required a massive hike up the hill, or a more exciting leap into the ocean. Needless to say we opted for the leap. Chad managed to snap the great pic that's on the site, then he had to toss the camera Aaron's way before he made his jump. Just before completing the island circuit, we realised the tide was coming in and the dingy wasn't anchored. Enter in beachside rock running.

That night we made it to Butterfly Bay and looked forward to a morning of Scuba diving and snorkling. After a dual certification process from Chad & Eric's Diving Extravaganza, Aaron was fully prepared for his not so very certified dive. You could see the fear in his eyes as he put the regulator in his mouth for the first time in his life, about 30 seconds before he'd be 15 metres below the surface. sweet.

Chad and Eric took a dive later that day and enjoyed the use of a leaky valve, a dead air gauge, and fins that didn't fit. Eric was the lucky winner with the dead air pressure reader and about 15 minutes into the dive, at about 8 metres of depth, Eric ran completely ran out of air. With about 8 ft of visibility, he could only just see the fins of his soon to be life support. Having taken his last (half) breadth of air, he grabbed Chad's octupus and began to breath normally again. To all the PADI certified divers, we made a safe ascent to the surface. To everyone else, we continued to dive for another 25 minutes.

We hit some fierce weather heading south to Hook Island Resort to pick up Devon. We managed to submarine the boat on several occasions, which of course brought us immediately to the front of the boat to fully experience it. We didn't see many other boats on the water that day...

Aaron was happy to find out the front port hatch was leaking water and completely soaked his luxury suite. That's alright, Chad and Eric blamed it on his overly aggressive steering of the vessel in the first place...

We made it to Hook Island Resort about 4 hours late, but Devon did have two other people to spend the day with on the island, that and a stalkish lizard that wouldn't leave her alone. That night we enjoyed another fine meal, a few drinks, and some late night swimming.

The next day we were heading to one of the highlights of the entire Whitsundays, Whithaven Beach. En route, we managed to come across 3 dolphins, a good 5 or 6 sea turtles, a half dozen 4 ft sting rays, thousands of blue soldier crabs, and a flock of Great White sharks. (The sharks weren't confirmed, but Aaron's pretty sure he saw them.) We hiked up the jungle trail to an epic lookout and enjoyed a clearing of the sky and the a completely desolate beach, at least that's what we thought. We went down to the beach to soak up the views from the ground level and stumbled across literally thouasands of these bizarre "blue soldier crabs". They burroughed in the sand when you approached them and then you'd be forced to walk over just herds of these little guys. very weird feeling. As we were wondering the beach the tide came racing in and totally changed the entire look of the beach.

The next day we really wanted to get to border island but the route that we would have had to take was "not advisable" because of 2-4 metre swells. But with all the experience we had sailing we figured we'd give it a go. We made it to Border Island and successfully got the dingy stranded on a super low tide. We were stranded but hardly bothered. We came prepared with a cooler of drinks, food, and of course, the ghetto blaster. We were good for hours.

That night we grubbed another delicious meal, and happily kept the boat another day. Miraculously, we were able to return the boat without running it aground. We're still trying to figure out how we managed it...

Now we're back on our bikes and have our 6 day stint up the coast to Cairns. Oh man, how quickly we lose our fitness!