We made our way down to the marina for 8.30 in the morning. We were shown to our boat, the Anaconda 2. Prior to becoming a tourist charter it had been a racing yacht made in the late 70s. Our skipper had been with the boat since the start and had even been part of the crew that sailed it round the world so had many stories about his voyages. We motored out of the marina and the deckhand quickly raised the sails.
The weather was beautiful so we lay out on deck, admired the views and caught some rays. That was pretty much as energetic as it got for the next couple of days. A few times during the day we stopped off near one of the islands and, after donning our stinger suits, went for a snorkel. The Whitsundays are part of the Great Barrier Reef world heritage site and many of the islands have small coral reefs along the fringe of their coastline. During our trip we saw a variety of coral, sponges, loads of tropical fish of all shapes and sizes, turtles and even dolphins. You don’t need to be able to dive as the reef was often just a meter or two under the surface. The views are amazing it really is like a completely different underwater world! The first night we stopped off near South Molle Island and linked up with some of the other boats at a nearby bar. A couple of people from our Fraser Island safari were there so it was cool to see them again.
On the second day the skipper set sail before light to bring us round to Whitehaven beach for sunrise. We spent a couple of hours at Whitehaven, a picture postcard white sandy beach. Once back on board we continued the theme of lying out on deck mixed with the odd snorkel. We also went for a walk on Whitsunday Island to a lookout with fantastic views over Whitehaven. We spent the 2nd night moored in a secluded bay. Our skipper shone a light down into the water which attracted all sorts of sea creatures. There was a puffer fish blowing itself up to ward off attacks from the bat fish, a dolphin chasing after food and lots of small tropical fish. We chilled out on deck with a couple of beers before going to bed fairly early.
On the third day the wind had picked up. We had all the sails up and were really flying on some of the exposed stretches. The boat was leaning over a bit and the swell had increased to about a meter. The deckhand was saying they’d been caught in 4 meter swells before so this was nothing but it was still cool to be doing some proper sailing. We were all sat on the high side with our legs over the edge. Every so often a slightly bigger wave would come along and if you were sat up the front the spray would drench you. I sat up the front and got thoroughly soaked before moving back to comfort Jenn who was starting to feel a little queasy. We cruised back into the marina mid afternoon. It was an amazing trip and I definitely wouldn’t mind working as a deckhand for a month or two!
