Whitsunday's Sailing Trip!

Over Easter Break we had good Friday and Easter Monday off and so our school travel agent organized a trip to the Whitsunday Islands for us to go sailing.

Friday morning we left JCU and arrived in Airlie Beach mid-arvo. After checking into our backpacker's accommodation we headed out to explore- we laid out by the lagoon and then headed to Whitsunday Opal's for a free digeridoo lesson. Playing the digeridoo is so hard!

Saturday six of us went to breakfast at Village Cafe and I had a delicious breakfast of pancakes with fresh blueberries and cream- amazing! Then we headed over to the Airlie Markets- first highlight of the day was passing a group of cockatoos and getting them to land on our arms! After browsing around the market for a while it was finally time to head to our sailboat! I was on Wings II with 6 others from JCU. It was a catamaran and definitely smaller than I had been envisioning but still perfect none the less. There were four crew members; a skipper, two divemasters, and our "mum" for the trip. That first afternoon we got straight in the water for a scuba dive at Heyman Island (maybe it's actually Hayman, idk) and then we did a night dive at the same spot. The dive site was at Blue Pearl Bay and the coral in that area was called "the maze" and we ended at the "dance floor." While diving we saw a huge humphead maori wrasse named Priscilla that swam right up to us! and I got to hold a starfish.

Sunday morning we woke up to a beautiful Easter morning sunrise at around 6:15am (who said you get to sleep in on holiday?) and we were straight in the water for two dives at Hook Island. We saw so many amazing fish- the fish you see at aquariums really are in the ocean! The highlights of the morning were feeling the underside of a sea anemone (it was soo soft and smooth!), seeing huge angelfish and a lionfish. Sunday afternoon we sailed through "the washing machine" to the largest island in the Whitsundays actually called Whitsunday Island home to Whitehaven Beach. For those of you who don't know, Whitehaven is consistently rated in the top 3 most beautiful beaches in the WORLD. The sand is made out of about 99% silica and it is the whitest, finest sand you will ever see- it was hard for me to imagine it before I got there but it is seriously like fine fine grains of sugar. 

Monday was another early morning- instead of scuba diving I decided to snorkel. It was a great spot to snorkel :) That afternoon all of the other JCU students left but I had decided to stay because my practicals for Tuesday had been canceled. Monday night our boat had an after party at one of the establishments in Airlie and so I went to that and had fun talking to one of the girls from Denmark and a couple from England that had been on my boat.

Tuesday morning I went sea kayaking with Salty Dog Kayaking. We kayaked through "the Gateway to the Whitsundays" out of Shute Harbor past some of the islands to this place called White Rock. Apparently when Captain James Cook was exploring the Whitsundays he charted it as a rock and it has never been reclassified as an island. They had delicious morning tea for us there and we were able to climb the rocks, maybe it was like bouldering?, to get a beautiful view of the Whitsundays. On the way back we took it slow and our guide told us all about the islands and the damage from the cyclone.

The Whitsunday Islands are a chain of 74 islands located off the Queensland Coast that are continental islands. This means they have been subsiding and became islands because of sea level rise (I believe but not 100% sure). As the islands have subsided fringing reefs developed surrounding the islands. These fringing reefs are now a part of the Great Barrier Reef.

Tuesday afternoon I ate lunch and wandered around Airlie with some Australians I met kayaking and then headed home on Wednesday morning.

Orpheus Island

Life is busy in Australia, but luckily not because of classes (I have just put all my school work off) but because of adventures :)

Orpheus Island- March 26-29th I had a field study class with my coral reef geomorphology class to our uni's research station off the coast of Queensland on an island that only has two things: 1. our research station and 2. the resort all the celebrities go to for like $2000 a night. It was amazing- I was full on expecting shacks in the bush but no- we had nice bunks, showers, a great porch to sit on while drinking our coffee in the morning :) While we were there we were working on doing reef flat surveys- comparing a low-energy leeward reef to a high-energy windward reef. In the afternoons after we got done with our work we were able to go snorkeling- my favorite site was the area with a clam bed with giant clams of the most brilliant iridescent blue you have every seen.