update: whitsundays

Hey guys! this past week has been super hectic but incredibly fun. From magnetic island we jumped on 12 hour bus down south to airlie beach. This bus was pretty horrible. So far on this trip I have had little to no sleep and this bus was our night accommodation. So the sleep I got was non existent.

Okay, so we arrived in Airlie beach and booked our sailboat for the Whitsundays. The boats name was "The Avatar" so this has to be good right? Exactly. The trip was a 3 day, 2 night sail around all these islands. The main one is Whitsunday and whit haven beach. Both phenomenal.

day one: We have been waiting outside the boat for 10 late arrivals before we could jump ship. So far there hasn't been a huge young crowd of kids like we thought, so that was making us a little nervous. The hope was that the 10 late arrivals would be all our age and ready to have a good time. haha, nope. 10 Italian family members pull up and we head off. We all thought this would be a joke but the Italians were the best people on the boat. The grandma and me bonded. She kept stealing my nose like I was her grandchild. Oh Italians, your the best.

Anyways we hoped on the boat and away we went. A good portion of it was using the engine (no sail) but when the wind picked up the caption would stop and have everyone get up and help pull the ropes to get the sail up in position. Which was interesting. By now everyone is just laying in the sun and enjoying the scenery. A couple of hours flew by and the caption stopped for a snorkel. The worst part about northern Australia is that you can't just jump in the water. Theres jellyfish everywhere and you'll die. So we have to put on these super cheezy stinger suits and then jump in. Anyways the snorkel was fun. Lots of coral and holding my breath to feel like i'm scuba diving. We get back on the boat and start to sail again. Lots of lounging and drinking goon (what do you know, goon). Couple more hours fly by and we pull up to our island to set up camp and eat dinner.

For some reason the boats capacity didn't hold every person on the boat to sleep. Ofcourse, we were those people so we had to sleep on this island in tents. The deckhand were supposed to drive us in whenever we were done for the night. But after talking and drinking with the crew we convinced them that we wouldn't rat them out if we could just sleep outside on the boat. There idea was to put us actually in the sail and sleep. Awesome! We all jumped on that and slept in the sail for the night. Thanks Avatar!

Day 2: woke up at the crack of dawn. I mean 4 a.m. That's when the sun comes up here and the caption needed the sail and for us to get up before people figured out what we did and where we slept that night. Go team. Got up, ate breakfast and laid in the sun all over the again. Did another snorkel and then headed towards Whithaven beach. The beach was well known for white sand and incredible scenery. Jumped off the boat and had to hike about 1 km through the forest to this beach. The flys here were in peak season and were freakin everywhere. They remind me of horse flys only 3 or 4 times bigger and they bite many many times. Hurts really bad. I laughed quite a bit because they would bite the girls every second and wouldn't really get me.

As we entered the beach it reminded me of the scene in the movie "the beach". Pure white sand that felt like velvet. Weird fuzzy feeling. The sand grain is so fine that it feels much different than the typical beach sand. The contrast with the rain forest in background was amazing. As we walked into the water you could see these strange white/clear fish scitter across you. There were hundreds of these fish but you couldn't see them until you walk right by them. I was with 4 other girls and me so they had to have there typical photo shoot session. Which was probably good cause the more pictures the better. But I'm glad that happened because this is definitely the best beach I have ever seen in my life. Hands down. The pictures I have taken don't even capture what you see and feel out here.

We spent a little over an hour at this beach and then had to get back on the boat. Which was a bummer. Set sail and headed out to sea again. More snorkeling and relaxing. Shoots I gotta go. Damn. I'll post again when I can.