Day 4 and 5

Today we set off for our two day sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands. The sailboat that we were on was called the Boomerang, and was much bigger than I expected. The ship was able to sleep 28, so we had a little more room than we do on our bus. When we first got on the boat, the weather was beautiful. It was sunny and warm, and had a lot of wind for sailing. However, about an hour into our trip, it started raining. At first, the rain was very off and on, but then it started pouring down rain. It was kind of fun at first to be sailing in the rain, but then it started getting cold, and was not so much fun after I was soaking wet. Soon after I got out of the rain, we stopped at Whitehaven Beach island to hike and look at some of the wildlife. Since I did not want to get any more of my clothes soaking wet, a couple of girls and I decided to put on stinger suits. We may have looked incredibly silly, but it was probably one of the best ideas, since we didn’t have to worry about staying dry. During our hike, we were able to stop at several lookouts, which were beautiful. The water was so crystal clear and the views looked like things you would find on postcards. We were able to go down into the ocean and little lagoons, where we found sting rays. They swam right next to us, which was a little scary at first, but good thing we had those stinger suits on! While we were in the ocean, it started pouring so hard, so we decided to head back to the boat.

Since it was raining and cold, most of us decided to change into dry clothes and hang out in the bottom of the boat. Eventually, all of us ended up sitting in the bottom of the boat, and played cards, which was kind of entertaining. After a few hours, we finally got to the cove where we were anchoring for the night, which was nice. I don’t usually get seasick, but after being in the bottom of the boat for a while, I started to feel sick, so it was great to be stopped for a while. Thankfully, the rain came to a stop, so it was nice to be on the deck of the boat.

In the morning, we all got into groups to go scuba diving, which I was very excited and nervous for. I figured that I had to do it since we were by the Great Barrier Reef, so why not? We were taken to another boat, which is where we got all of our gear on and set off. The gear was about 50 pounds, so it was very difficult to swim with it at first. There were two instructors, so there were three people to an instructor, which was nice because it was very personable. They took us to a shallow part of the water, where we learned how to clear our masks of water while we were underwater and how to clear our breathing device and mouth of water if the breathing device was ever ripped out of our mouth. To clear your mask, you have to tilt your head all the way back, push lightly on the top of the mask so that it tilts up on the bottom and then blow out of your nose to get the water out. To clear out your breathing device, you have to hold it so that the part that goes in your mouth is facing the sky, before you put it back in your mouth. When you put it in your mouth, you will get salt water in your mouth, so in order to get it out you have to yell “two” and it will get out of the mask. I will admit, these skills were very hard to learn at first, on top of getting use to breathing under water, which is a very unique thing to do. During training, my mask kept filling up with large amounts of water, which was making me panic. I kept clearing it, but because the mask didn’t fit correctly on my face, it just kept filling up with water. I almost gave up and went back to the boat, but the instructor gave me her mask, which was a huge help. After I had calmed down, we were able to descend into the water. Right when we got down to the bottom, we saw this giant fish, named Elvis. He was probably 3 feet long, and 2 feet nigh, but was very friendly. He laid on his side, and we were able to pet him. He was very slimy, just like any other fish. We continued on into the reef, which was an amazing sight. We saw many colorful fish and coral, and we even saw a clownfish! It was smaller than I had thought it would be, but at least I got to see a real live Nemo!

After scuba diving, we sailed back to the harbor, which was a much more enjoyable experience. The weather was great on our way back, and was very sunny. I wish that our whole trip would have been that nice, but it definitely made the trip an interesting experience. When we got back to land, we celebrated 4^th of July, which wasn’t as big of a celebration as Canada day, but many of the bars and restaurants played fireworks on the TV!

Words of the day:

Goon – Wine