Day 213 (Friday 10/06) - Whitsundays Trip Day 1

 Wake up at 7:45am.

The meeting point is at 8:45am in front of Gloria's Cafe.
While waiting, I meet another guy going on the same boat (the Southern Cross), Kristof, from Antwerpen !

There's also a girl, Conny, from Hambourg.

A bit later, as I come back from the toilet, I see 3 other girls waiting, and ask them if they're also going on the same boat, which they do.
(Madlen from Frankfurt, Suzanne and Inger from Norway - they all 3 are really nice)

A bit later, a girl with a "Southern Cross" shirt arrives, Liv (a Kiwi from Christchurch, a bit "hardcore" style - really cool), and tells us we're waiting for one more person to arrive : her train has been delayed, and she should be here very soon.

Meanwhile, we get to know each other.

Finally, the other girl arrives, it's Ruth from Colorado.

We can now go to the ship and get on board.

There we meet up with Wazza (aka Waz), the skipper.
He's excellent, funny guy.

So in the end, we are seven passengers, and two crew members, on a boat that can hold up to 15 people !
(we're a really small group, and a really good one !)

The boat is 30 years old, and she's around 25m.
(sailing boat)

We leave the harbour, and get into the ocean.
The weather is quite bad, it's very cloudy.

After only a few minutes, next to the first island we pass by, we see dolphins jumping around !
Cool !
(but hard to photograph)

After a while sailing, we make a stop just next to Dunbell Island, for lunch (quiche + salad).
We then go snorkelling there.

The visibillity isn't very good, but the reef is so close to the surface that we can still see pretty well.

As usual, it's amazing ... The sea life is incredible, so many fishes and corals ... So beautiful.

We then leave to get to our next stop, Whitehaven beach.
Soon the rain starts, and the wind is also quite strong.
It's not as beautiful as it should be (islands all around, with turquoise water, and blue sky), but in the end it's more fun !
(the sea is really tough, and the waves are really big ! It's a bit scary, but lot of fun !)

We get to Whitehaven Southern End in the end of the afternoon, and stop there (we'll stay there for the night).

As the sun sets (unfortunately we will not see it because of the clouds), we see a lot of big fishes and turtles swimming around the boat, it's really nice.

Meanwhile, Liz brings us some nachos she's prepared. We eat them while watching the fishes.

Later, we have dinner, then stay a while talking, before going to bed, quite early.