Here comes the sun

After spending another night in Hervey Bay we packed up and headed for Airlie Beach. In the name of good travels we decided to break up the 8 hour drive with a stop in Rockhampton, for really no other reason than the fact that it had a YHA hostel. This usually provides a cool opportunity to check out some little town's that you may not have had the chance to see otherwise, that being said this was NOT the case. I'm not one to rag on places that I know little to nothing about, because after all it is "home" to someone. I am however willing to make an exception for Rockhampton, quite simply...DO NOT GO HERE. I have never been to small town Kentucky but I would imagine it would be something like that.

Now for the fun stuff...

The Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef - February 15th-19th, 2009

Airlie Beach might just be the closest I ever get to Hawaii and to be completely honest I'm not even sure if I would ever know the difference. We boarded our sailing vessel, "Spank Me!" on Monday afternoon from the beautiful coastal town with our fingers crossed hoping for the best from the skies. We slightly overlooked the fact that we had booked a sailing trip in the middle of the rainy season in the tropics until we were bombarded with people telling us how awful the weather was going to be leading up to the trip. Thankfully they were very wrong.

After boarding the boat and meeting the crew (who were fantastic by the way) we set out to sail the islands. Our first stop was about 2 hours off the coast where we stopped and had snacks on a sand spit literally in the middle of nowhere. We watched the sun set and were wowed by a spectacular lightning show that seemed to be a complete 360 degrees around us. The nature induced variety show was just getting started however as we were entertained for literally hours by a pod of dolphins that were jumping and feeding right beside our ship. We had dinner, had some beers and once again enjoyed great company. The sleeping quarters on the ship were tight and very hot which is why I elected to sleep on the deck of the ship. The deck wasn't the comfiest sleep I've ever had but I probably will never fall asleep to the sounds of dolphin's jumping around in the water either. A fair trade I'd say.

Tuesday morning came early as the crew started sailing just after 4:00 a.m. en route to the Great Barrier Reef. We were awoken by Fleetwood Mac's Go Your Own Way blasting on the stereo and I kind of half expected Nicole Henderson to be dancing on the bow, but no such luck. The certified divers were the first to get a crack at the Great Barrier Reef as Shaun the on board diving instructor took Kim, Kristine, Daniel, Paul and myself out for our first dive at 8:30 a.m. There is no describing the experience of diving in the Great Barrier Reef. It is simply one of the most fascinating and best things you could ever do and I feel so lucky to have had the chance. The reef is packed with thousands of colourful fish, coral and other marine life which was just incredible. Our 40 minute dive took us 25 metres under the surface where Shaun lead us through some tight caverns and we saw a few sea turtles and a 2 metre long Wabbegong (surface shark). The realization I quickly came to was that every postcard or picture you see of the GBR was exactly correct, just on a much grandeur scale. For all you Winnipegger's just imagine swimming through Club Regent's aquarium multiplied by about a million.

After the dive we relaxed on the ship in the soaking hot sun for the entire day. I got a start on my third (yes, THIRD) book of the trip, Dreams from my Father, a book written by Barack Obama while he was in law school at Harvard. I finished it two days later and I highly recommend the read. I know it seems a tad cliche, but I have to tell you it reads like a fiction novel and it's really no a surprise that the man is president considering the fascinating life he has lived.

Becky cooked us an amazing Green Curry meal for supper which rivaled Salad King before we hit the bottle one more time. We spent the majority of the night hanging out with Sam and Sam, two friends from New Zealand and our newly acquired Canadian friend Lisa from Vancouver. A big shout out to Lisa who is up there with the funniest and most entertaining people I have ever met.

The sun set on our second night of the trip and I was once again on top of the world. Quite simply, amazing.

More to come,

kc