Samantha's Day

Yet another early morning, a 07:10 pick up and back to Abel Point Marina for the trip on Camira cruising around the Whitsunday Islands, but in particular stopping at Whitehaven Beach as requested by Samantha.  It looked liked being another glorious day with only light fluffy clouds dotted in the bright blue sky.

We boarded the catamaran at 8.15am with 58 people (not like yesterday!) but there was plenty of room and it didn’t feel crowded.  One small point of note, the Camira used to be called Tsunami, until the disaster of 2004 – I can’t imagine we would have fancied a trip onboard if it had not been renamed!!

We gently cruised around the islands, passed Daydream Island, Long Island, Hook Island, Whitsunday Island, Hamilton Island etc until the tourist mecca that is Whitehaven Beach was in sight.  Whitehaven Beach is 7km of 96% pure silicone sand which glistened brightly in the baking sun – however much to our surprise it was not hot underfoot as most of the heat is reflected by the pureness of the sand.  Camira dropped anchor in Whitehaven Bay and we needed to get the tender (dinghy) from the boat to the beach.  However, with Samantha’s now highly tuned sea-legs this did not present any problems or squeals.

The only slight issue was that to go swimming we yet again had to don the attractive stinger suits.  Having had a beer Jonny said he thought he was like “special forces” in his stinger suit, Samantha thought he was more like “special needs”!!

The beach can only be described as paradise with its turquoise waters lapping the shore.  But boy was it hot – too hot to sunbathe.  We were glad we had donned the attractive stinger suits so we could mess about in the sea!  

Jonny now possibly suffering from mild sunstroke then thought his stinger suit would be good all over rugby body armour and took about some light training (notice the word light).  

After an hour or so on the beach it was time to return to the boat for a delicious BBQ lunch which was awaiting us.  After lunch we cruised round to Hook Island where Jonny again decked out in his stinger suit/special forces uniform/rugby armour and went off for some snorkeling. Whilst Jonny was off scaring fish, Samantha stayed on the boat and got talking to a nice girl called Kay who was travelling with her boyfriend Steve, they were heading to New Zealand where they planned on working for a year.

A gentle cruise, with sails hoisted and we were back in the Marina for 5.30pm having had another glorious day on the Pacific Ocean.  For anyone reading this in Oundle we think we have found Joey’s antipodean cousin…he was the skipper of the boat – see below!

We took a short walk into Airlie Beach, picked up some essentials and went for an early supper at Cactus Jacks Mexican Restaurant.  Some Margarita and Mexican food later we headed home, fully satisfied with another exhausting day!!

Tomorrow we leave Airlie Beach and head north to Townsville.