October 10, 2010

First, an Emily thing… it's 10/10/10. I love this more because here they do DD/MM instead of MM/DD and it's the same both ways! Anyway, just got on the bus to Rainbow Beach. It's 530pm now and I won't get to Rainbow Beach until 740am tomorrow. Should be a long night. Hanging out in Rainbow beach for the day and Fraser Island the day after.

So, quick rundown of Syd, then I'll review Sailing. I had a great time in Sydney until the last day; details of that in the last post. Last day: I ran late to donate blood, which ended up being fine and displayed my love for Australia more. Almost passed out when I decided to go for a walk across the harbor bridge. Scariest moment at that point in Australia. That walk was my goal for the day, so when I couldn't do that I was sort of stranded in the city until dinnertime. My phone died so I had to go buy a charger. I was wicked sunburned too so I couldn't really sit in the park and tan because I was already sizzling. Needless to say it was fairly boring. Then I sat on a train for 20min to hang with Michael for dinner. That wasn't too bad, short, but civil. 40min back to Jackie's where we had to vent about our crap days, then early start for airport to Airlie. I'm good at airports. I get in a zone of chill-ness. So a few hours later I was arriving in the amazingly sunny Airlie Beach. Such a small airport. Two gates, one runway, tiny. The baggage area was not only outside, it had no roundy thing so the little cart just drove straight from the plane to this covered car space and you grab your stuff. Seemed sorta cheap, but it was cool. Shuttle to town, checked into the hostel and took a walk to check in for the sailing trip. When I got back to the hostel my lone roommate was in and bored out of her mind so we went for a walk. I thought it'd be nice to see where I had to go the next morning so I wouldn't get lost early in the AM so we wandered to the marina, which was lovely. Walked up and down the things checking out the nice yachts and boats. Walked back to the hostel and watched a movie. I was dead tired so I went to sleep at like 930 or 10. I've been sleeping earlier and earlier lately.. I wonder if that means anything.

Wake up, head to the marina, and only like one person was there. We were all given bags at check in the day earlier so it was easy to spot us. After the majority of the people were checked in the cute scuba instructor, Ryan, took our booking conformations and we waited for everyone else… 12 passengers in total. Got on the boat; first rule: no shoes. Love this already. Weather was good, but expected to get worse, so we just sat on the deck enjoying the sun while the skipper, Brent, gave us our little shpeal. 12 passengers, all fairly young, and 3 crew, so 15 of us in total. So since the weather was expected to get much worse in the next few days we went to the reef straight away instead of the islands. Basically from land you sail out a few hours to one of the 70 islands, chill out there, then sail another 4-5hrs out to the outer reef. A lot of sailboats don't go out to the outer reef because it's so far, which is why I chose this boat. So, we just went straight to the reef (minus the sail because the wind wasn't in our favor I guess). Pretty bumpy getting out there so some people felt sick but mostly we all just sort of sat tight and read or laid out to tan. I got a bit dizzy a time or two, but nothing too bad. Got out there at like 2ish and did our first dive. I was a little nervous cause it's been awhile since I'd done a dive, but it was pretty stellar. There were 6 certified divers plus Ryan. Of the 3 total dives, I never saw anything super awesome. I saw one little shark but no turtles or sting rays or anything like that. Mostly INCREDIBLE coral and heaps of fish. From what I remember this was so much better than Mission Beach. This reef was just incredible, all of it. I didn't get any pics here cause my camera only goes down 10ft and we went 16m so, 48ft, right? So, we finished that dive, hung out on the boat for the rest of the night. It was the coolest thing ever. Clouds started coming in toward the evening but it was so empty. We could vaguely see the islands in the distance but there wasn't a single other boat out there so we had the ocean to ourselves, it was insane. Dinner of roasted lamb and vegetables was awesome. We just chill out on the deck in the dark and chat and chill all night. Bonus of this boat was that everyone wanted to dive and they suggest not drinking before diving, so no one really drank, just sorta hung out and chatted. Everyone was from everywhere, South Africa, Switzerland, England, France, Belgium, and a bunch of other places. Such fun to chat with everyone. I kind of attached to the couple from south africa and their friend who's now living in Brisbane. Also, Matthew, from England. We played a bit of UNO (with regular cards cause we didn't have any UNO cards) and chatted on the deck for a bit. I went to bed pretty early cause I wasn't sure how sleeping on a rocking boat was going to be, but it ended up being fairly good. The reef blocks most of the waves, but because the weather was getting a bit worse, the wind did pick up and there were more waves, nothing too bad. There was just the tiny port hole and little fan so it got sort of stuffy in the beds, but other than that, the rocking never bothered me. The bed itself was the top bunk and super close to the ceiling. Not too easy to climb up cause you had to almost crawl into it. Wasn't too uncomfortable.

Next day was a morning diving. Weather seemed to be pretty awesome. Some clouds but definitely sun and tanning. First dive took the place of the scariest moment in Australia. The current was insane! Ryan said later that he'd never dove in water like that before and he's been diving for ages and was in the marines diving and was an instructor in Mexico for a year, so he's got some dives under his belt. There was a little trench we were meant to dive through and he warned us ahead of tme that the current there would be a bit rough, but once we got through it it'd be fine. Swimming through that was nearly impossible. I felt like I wasn't going anywhere. Actually, I know I wasn't going anywhere because I saw the same piece of coral on the wall beside me the whole time. I was doing okay keeping up with everyone else doing just as bad. Finally Ryan turned around and when he did that the current caught be and started pulling me up. When I couldn't get back down to everyone and I saw them swimming away I started to panic and lose my breath (scuba diving 101, don't do that). I started hyperventilating, which is terrifying when you only have a regulator in your mouth for air. I inhaled a bit of water, started choking, kept breathing through the regulator until I got to the surface. Another scuba diving 101 is to stay with your buddy and let them know if you go up, which I couldn't do because I couldn't get to anyone before I started freaking out. So, here I am at the surface having the skipper take his little boat out to me and I tell him no one knew I was up there. Eventually everyone comes up to find me, I feel terrible, we go back down. Current is still crazy, but we're managing okay and I'm doing fine. It was okay for a bit, we were cruising around following the current, which sort of sucked cause you basically have no control and are just going with the flow (literally). Then, we get to a corner. Ryan and a few people go one way and the current rips me the other way. I grab onto coral to try and pull myself back toward them, but that's not happening. I start panicking again (in retrospect I'm hugely disappointed in myself), grab the girl that's next to me doing the same and tell her I'm going up. My fingernails on 3 fingers were ripped off pretty good and my fingers were torn up pretty good as well from grabbing that coral. Hope I didn't ruin it! We must have been really deep or the current kept pushing me because I didn't think I was going to make it to the surface. It was insane. Finally got to the surface and Brent races out to me again. I tell him that I won't go back. Eventually everyone gets up and says that they don't want to keep going either. Nothing from that dive was good. I didn't get to enjoy any of the reef and while being pulled along WITH the current was a little thrill, getting whipped past everyone and freaking out was not cool. We got back to the boat and they took out the beginner divers to a different spot and they had a good time. We did lunch and went out again. This time to a different spot and during a different tide so we were assured that there wouldn't be any current. Everyone was pretty keen on having a chill dive and not wanting ANYTHING like the last one. They took us to a spot called "The Cathedral". Basically you swim through a little hole, down and up into a big cave sort of thing. Big circle, no top, one way in and out… that tunnel we just came in. Sounds terrifying after I thought I was going to die before. So going down I told Grant (my buddy) that I might hold onto him for a bit at first. Everyone was checking I was okay for the first 5 min or so, but it was perfect. The perfect dive. The cathedral was wicked. I was nervous to dive through a tunnel, but once through, we had this awesome little dome thing to play in. We swam around in there for a min or two with cool coral, no fish that I can remember, and then out. I don't remember the name of the part of the reef we went along after that but it was incredible. Huge walls of coral and insane fish. I like the walls of coral cause it's basically open ocean to one side of you and a wall on the other so your focus is completely at the wall. We could swim back and check out the WHOLE wall, then get closer and get a close up. We'd swim back and make motions like, "check out this incredible sight"… like the whole thing was spectacular. I wish I could take pics. I have a few mental ones, so if the technology gets here, take a look. Mobs of schools of fish everywhere, so many different kinds of coral, just incredible. I think that dive lasted 30min or so and we came up with Grant ran out of air. I had plenty so once we got back to the boat I kinda hung around the boat checking out the school of fish and the big huge fish (Arthur I think they named him) that was under the boat. Pretty cool. Later we could do another dive, which was so tempting after that awesome dive, or snorkeling. I wanted to get some pics so I did a snorkel. I couldn't see if the pics were turning out so I just clicked non stop for like an hour in the water. So amazing. We got to see heaps of fish here too, and much closer to the surface. Once I got out of the water the camera stopped working. Apparently water gets into the battery after you get out of the water (awesome), so I can't turn the camera on, so I don't know how the pics turned out. Fingers crossed because that'd save me from trying to describe it. Speechless. After that snorkel we cruised back toward the islands. Long trip back and the rocking was putting me to sleep, plus I think I was still sort of exhausted from my near death morning so I went down and napped. Everyone was fairly shocked because the boat was rocking pretty good. Winds were definitely picking up and the sun went away, so there wasn't much to do except sit and look at the waves. If you sat at the bow you could get splashed, but I already had my 2 min shower. Bathrooms real quick… tiny in general, but toilets had tiny tubes… don't even think about poop going down these things, and made a loud noise. Boat only holds so much water so we had to take 2min showers. That meant turn on (hot or cold cause you didn't have time to adjust) rinsing off. Turning off. Lathering whole body. Turn on and rinse off. Hope to not soak entire bathroom in the process while rocking in the waves. Interesting. Anyway, nap, then up for spaghetti dinner, hang out for a few. Stop for the night at an island away from the big islands. Brent said he doesn't get in too close to the main islands because he likes us being the only ones around. We liked it too. Way cool to only be around the same 14 people for 2 days without seeing another soul. Brent gave us a little star teaching (without us actually looking at stars cause it was so cloudy), Ryan showed us a slideshow he made of the pics he had taken so far (which we got to buy on DVDs later), and then I went to bed again at like 930.

Early morning at the islands. I was hoping to get up in time to see the sunrise but it was too cloudy. Breakfast in the harbor at the main Whitsunday Island. Other boats around now and turtles. After brekky we had to wait for the tide to rise a bit before we could get to shore. We took our little boat to the island and Ryan took us on a walk to a lookout that overlooks Whitehaven Beach, which is top 10 of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The white sand was so incredible all in itself. The shit weather made it sort of a downer, but the water was still a beautiful teal color and the sand was still crazy white. It was kinda cool just to be on land again anyway. Seriously, the fact that in the clouds this was an insanely gorgeous beach, I couldn't imagine it with the sun out. Well, I've seen pictures and it's spectacular, but what can you do? So we went to the lookout then down to the beach. This sand was so white and so soft and fine, it was incredible. I guess it's silica or something. They say it's great to exfoliate and clean jewelry so everyone was rubbing it around. Grant's bald so they were exfoliating his head. You're not supposed to swim in the water without a stinger suit so we just wandered along the shore, but it was still incredible. We got heaps of pics. Tried to get some fun ones of leaps and cartwheels. Way cool. Matthew and I wandered through some rocks and found a private little beachy area. Our footprints looked like the first footprints to ever touch it, which is obviously not true, but so cool. Hung out there for an hour or 2 then back to the boat. Lunch while cruising around between two of the big islands, then we got to bring the sails up and finally sail for a bit. I got to use some wench thing, which wasn't as exciting as it sounded at the time. Once the sails were up we just held on for dear life while the boat was tipping to the side. The one side was like dipping in the water. Brent was so cute and you could tell he loved it so much. He's been the skipper of that boat for 8yrs and sailing for like 17. He lives for this stuff! Such a friendly guy. He loved answering questions and loved teaching us. You'd ask him a question and he'd go into detail about that and a few other related topics. Really sweet. I hung onto the side of the boat for a bit, then slowly made my way to the front where you had a great view at how tilted the boat was. It was incredible! You'd think the thing was going to capsize. So awesome. I'm just hangin out thinking I could probably stand on the railing on the other side of the boat it was tipped so much. Still crazy cloudy but we managed the whole day without any real rain. A few drizzles here and there, but mostly just splashes while we were sailing along. Got back to dock at 4ish and everyone was off. Hugs to the crew, goodbyes to the other passengers. We exchanged emails with some of us to FB and share pics, so hopefully that'll work out, but it's sad meeting cool people and knowing you'll never see them again.

Well, battery just got eaten pretty good and I'm already used to the bus smell, so that's WAAYY long enough for now. Big props to anyone that actually read that whole thing. I'll try and give good details for each adventure.