An Awesome Sailing Adventure in the Whitsundays
From Townsville our next stop was Airlie Beach, a small coastal town largely visited by people making boat trips out to the Whitsunday Islands. There's not much to say about Airlie other than we didn't enjoy it much; it's basically a noisy holiday town full of backpackers and holiday makers getting drunk all night and sleeping/sunbathing all day. We slept terribly in our horrible hostel-resort dorm and were glad to be sailing away after just one night.So we happily left Airlie Beach and boarded the good ship Siska for a two-day adventure. Siska is in fact a retired 80ft Maxi yacht originally built for racing - she won several major races in the 80s including one with Prince Charles in the crew. The boat was a little crowded with 22 passengers and a 3 person crew, but for one night it wasn't really a problem. Some people however, most notably an irritating Welsh couple, seemed not to have checked what kind of trip they were booking on to. As a result they found the open-berth accomodation rather basic and spent a fair amount of time complaining about things that didn't matter, like the lack of cushions on deck(!). As you can imagine this gave us plenty to rant about once we were alone again, and it was very funny watching their faces when they first boarded.
Socially it was an interesting experience, as the boat quickly became split according to nationality; effectively (and depressingly) English and non-English. This was very different to the 'English-speaking vs. non English-speaking' outlook that we had formed in Asia and slightly difficult to adapt to. Another aspect about Australia that is taking some getting used to is that many more people here are holidaying rather than travelling. As a result we are meeting many more different outlooks to our own; for example, we don't think 45 pounds is good value for a meal!
On to the sailing. Although we were all encouraged to help with this, in reality the huge number of people meant that there wasn't much for most of us to do; all the 'big men' were invited to put the sails up, but little women weren't encouraged to help! However the sailing itself was still awesome. It was extremely windy both days so we got up some real speed, and it was great fun sitting up on the side of the boat while it tipped to an angle of almost 90 degrees to the sea.
The Whitsunday Islands are also popular with those who aren't sailing nerds, and we soon saw why. We were given several opportunities to do more snorkelling on coral reefs and were treated to more amazing sights. There were some varieties of fish and coral that we hadn't seen further north, and Chris even spied a small reef shark. Most of the islands seemed to be surrounded by coral, and so we also witnessed for the first time the destruction of the reefs by man. Whilst the crew of our boat were very careful when motoring in and out of beaches, others had far less regard for the environment as was evident from the dead coral on the shore.
By far the most beautiful, and most visited part of the Whitsundays is Whitehaven Beach. The most gorgeous white silicon sand I have ever seen stretches for over 6km, and if you visit at low tide (as we did) pools of sea water create amazing effects. We were lucky enough to have a skipper who knew times and tides well and so visited in the early evening. As a result we were almost the only people there and had the most fantastic clear views from the lookout point over the bay. This alone would have been worth spending the night at sea for, as I think everyone agreed.
Aside from the obvious highlights of our trip, we had a great time on board. We were kept well fed with regular meals and snacks, and enjoyed getting to know one another over a few beers under the stars. Despite having gone with one of the cheaper options it was still a fantastic experience and one I would recommend to anyone visiting the east coast of Australia - just don't spend too long in Airlie Beach!
Emily
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