Airlie Beach & Whitsundays

After a short ferry ride back to Townsville, we got back into Kitty and started making our way south down to Airlie Beach. Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, so after another night in a grim hostel we boarded our boat and set sail. Our sailing boat, The British Defender, was an 83ft veteran of the round-the-world yacht race. We spent our first afternoon out at sea and eventually arrived in darkness at Whitehaven beach. We moored at Whitehaven for the night and then spent the next morning on the breathtaking Whitehaven beach. The sand on Whitehaven beach is over 99% silicon and was used to create the lenses in the Hubble Telescope. From Whitehaven we sailed round to Tongue Bay were went on a bushwalk up to a lookout point. From Tongue Bay we sailed north and spent the afternoon and early evening snorkeling in Mantaray Bay, Maureens Cove and Blue Pearl Bay. We had planned on scuba diving whilst we were on the Whitsundays but our boat didn’t cross the path of the dive boat, so we had to miss out on this. The snorkeling was fantastic though, so we don’t think we missed out on too much. After a night moored in Blue Pearl Bay we made our way back to Airlie Beach. Despite being blessed with calm seas and stunning weather, Gaz never quite found his sea legs so he was glad to be back on solid ground. Irrespective of this, we still had great fun on the boat. The food was great, we made some great new friends, and we learnt a new drinking game (The Goon Train). The sailing itself was also a lot of fun and we both really enjoyed sailing along at a 45° angle as the waves crashed against the boat.