Day 32: Sailing at the Whitsundays

Getting pickup up from you hotel at 7 in the morning is definitely going to wake you up in the morning, even so for slow starters like myself. The courtesy van was being driven by Joseph, who described himself as the head chef, the head chauffeur and even the captain of the ship. The catamaran is called Illusions, and it is on this vessel that we will spend the day sailing to and from a few islands at the Whitsundays.

The weather has turned on us again today, as the cloud is overcast and gray again, but we can see some tiny blueish spots here and there, so we have hope that it’ll pass over us without giving rain. After embarking on the ship, and throwing off, we set out towards Blue Pearl Bay. This is a bay on one of the islands where the majority of the activities will take place today. Be it snorkelling or diving, this is where it’ll happen, and even lunch will be served whilst being moored there.

The journey there is leisurely and very relaxed as the method of propulsion is steady but not fast. We sail through some rain unfortunately, but our arrival at the bay is actually dry with the sun trying its hardest to peek through the cloud cover. The captain uses a dinghy to drop us off at a small beach in the bay. Let me get this straight: snorkelling the Breat Barrier Reef, whether it is the Inner or Outer, is awesome. This bay is in an area where there are up to 200 species of coral, and up to 500 species of reef dwelling fish to be found. This biodiversity is amazing! Everything is really colourful again, and this site has many more fish than back in Cairns. We can snorkel straight from the beach and hit the reef about 10 metres from the shore. We also have quite some time to spend here, as we will be on this beach for about 2 hours. Great!

We ourselves have spotted a great abundance of fish, but I couldn’t identify more than a few. The most notable were a massive Grouper, a few Anemone fish (Nemo! But slightly different) and a Murene Eel. After this, we went on a small trip again of about half an hour to the second location where there are frequent sightings of Sea Turtles. But, not today. No turtle has come forward to say Hi to the nice people from The Netherlands. 🙁

After lunch, we embarked on the journey back towards harbour which meant the majority of guests fell asleep after all things they’ve done today. We didn’t doze off, but marvelled at the great things we have experienced. And tomorrow, another full day will be spent out on the waters! This time with a much faster boat though…