As i write this im sat in our hostel in Cairns looking out the window at monsoonal rains, with the knowledge that a big storm with gale force winds is winging its way towards us. I knew when we decided to come to cairns that it was the wet season but i was expecting short torrential downpours not continuous rain. But im gettin ahead of myself, this entry should start on the morning we left Airlie Beach to sail the Whitsunday Islands, a morning which also included rather alot of rain!
After putting our bags in Storage we wandered down to the marina to meet our boat "Apollo", the rest of the gang we would be spending the next 3 days marooned with and the boats crew, Ricki - Skipper, Ryan - Deckhand, Harry - Dive Instructor, and Freya - Cook. Unsuprisingly yet again there were a disproportionate amount of Irish on board, but in general we were pretty internation with people from holland, switzerland, germany, canada, and of course the english. Unfortunately someone had forgotten the "no bannanas on board" rule and as soon as we set foot on the boat the heavens opened and pretty sharpish we were all decked out in some very attractive yellow waterproof jackets and complaining that this didnt look much like the pictures the travel agents had used when selling us the trip.
The masses decided we should head to Hamilton Island (a five star resort) for the afternoon where we could enjoy the cocktail bars out of the rain, typically as soon as we arrived at hamilton, and Harry found and removed the offfending Banana, the skies cleared to beautiful sunshine. All the same we disembarked and Jen, James and I managed to hitch a lift on the back of a golf buggy (there are no cars on the Island) over to the resort and so we arrived just in time for happy hour. The others who had been forced to walk arrived in dribs and drabs afterwards. In queensland there is a law that once you have started drinking you are not allowed in the sea to dive and snorkel, our crew had told us at 9.45 that morning that there would be no diving or snorkelling because of the weather so we had all cracked into the goon (for the uninitiated goon is, the very cheap, pretty disgusting, wine in a bag, thus we were delighted to find happy hour at the pool bar and took full advantage of that until funds ran out and we were forced to reconvene on the boat for some more goon! As you may imagine the rest of the day gets a little hazy around hear, but it consisted of getting to know each other and the crew a little better. I eventually fell asleep at 230am, on the deck because the bunks made me clastrauphobic,so was woken before 6 by the sunrise with a very fuzzy head. Felt much better after a hot shower and we headed off to whitehaven beach......
TO BE CONTINUED...
Ive run out of time and have to go to the airport, but will continue this saga from New Zealand!!
