Scuba Time

I can’t believe how quickly the time has flown by. It feels like yesterday that the girls and I were looking at brochures for sailing trips and planning our stay in the islands, and now it is over.

We flew out on Thursday afternoon and headed up to the Whitsunday Islands. We spent Thursday night, all day Friday and Friday night in Airlie beach. We stayed at a hostel close to the shops and pool. We were a little anxious to find out what it would be like, but it honestly wasn’t bad. We had a room to ourselves with one double and two twin beds. It wasn’t the Hilton, but at least we figured out how to turn on the air conditioner on the second day! Haha.
Friday at Airlie beach we had fun just relaxing and browsing the shops, but don’t get excited, I couldn’t find anything good there. That night Sam and I went out to eat at a nicer restaurant. The other girls bought food at the grocery store. It probably would have saved me a little money, but I was on vacation so I wanted to enjoy a nice meal. I ended up ordering kangaroo. I figured I have been here for two months so I better go ahead and try it while I had an excuse. I ordered it rare because the waitress said it was better that way, and she must have been right. Kangaroo is a gamey meat and it was so tender and juicy. I really enjoyed it. After that the girls and I had one of our best nights together. We walked down Airlie beach and tried out a few different places including the bar at our hostel, Beaches. They were playing some great music and when “Surfin USA” came on we got up and danced and had so much fun!!
Saturday morning we checked out of the hotel and had to pack up a very small soft sided bag for the boat. I packed my backpack for the entire vacation and then just threw 2 bathing suits, shorts and one dress/cover up for the boat into my purse. Yup, that was luggage for the next 2 days. I didn’t really need more because we weren’t able to shower on the boat due to a lack of fresh water. Believe me by that third day of salt water and sweat my hair was looking great and I smelled fantastic! No, not really.
We went on a catamaran called WINGS. The boat was one of the bigger ones and it was really nice. They consider it a dive and adventure boat, not a party boat so I was excited about that. The first day we sailed over to Whitehaven Beach.

This beach was breathtaking. We were able to get in the water and swim around. The beach is consists of pure white silica sand, the softest sand I have ever felt. It was so light and beautiful and the water was the clearest prettiest shade of aqua blue. It was actual warmer up there than the water here in Manly and I enjoyed swimming and taking in the beauty of where we were. That night we sailed over to an inlet where we dropped anchor.



The next morning we woke up early and went scuba diving. Our scuba instructor, Cookie, was so great. He was hilarious and kept me smiling. First he split up the boat into groups of three or four. My group of American girls, Sam, Ali, Andria and I were originally named The Mermaids, but we quickly turned into Team America. After the team got all geared up with our wetsuits, masks and fins, Cookie sat us down and strapped our scuba tanks on us. When he told us to stand up and get into the dingy I almost fell back over! Those tanks are heavy. We went over to the beach where Cookie taught us about scuba safety. We had to learn how to clear water out of our masks while under water and what to do if our air compressor thing fell out of our mouths as well as how to get water out of it. We all passed the five minute skills test and were on our way down into the deep blue. It took me a little while to get used to actually being able to breath while underwater, but once I stopped worrying about that and started looking around me I had a great time. The water was a little muggy because it was semi-cloudy and dreary out, but it was still a fantastic first dive. So much so that I went on to do the second dive offered and even after the rest of Team America backed out of dive three I jumped right in and went for a dive with two Canadian girls.

I loved the experience of diving and looking at the breath taking coral. I saw so many of God’s beautiful creations down there and it was a moving experience. I could have stayed for so much longer than an hour each dive. By dive three I was wondering why Cookie kept giving me the okay signal to ask if I was alright. Each time I would tell him I was fine and go one swimming around and looking for more nemos and colorful fish. That night while we were looking through the slideshow I saw this picture of my eyes fully open a mile wide. I was just enjoying the star cloud, but I can see why Cookie would think something could have been wrong. He told me I was a “freaky girl underwater.” Thanks Cookie.
Sunday night we parked the boat in a nice cove and we all gathered around to watch the sunset. It was one of the prettiest sunsets, not because it was the best I've ever seen, but because of all of the beauty surrounding it and involved in the trip.
Monday we woke up extra early to go for our final dive. I was excited because I heard the coral at this location was really good as well as the fact that we were going early enough to hopefully see some turtles. The last dive was wonderful. I cannot even find the words to describe the coral. There was so much to see and it was gorgeous. Everything was so colorful; right purples and orange colors with big blue fish and black and white fish glowing with blue around the edges. We stayed out for about an hour, which was long enough for me to come extremely close to running out of air. On every dive Cookie would have to check my little air meter thing more than others. I always used up much more air than everyone else. We think it is because in being trained to sing through my diaphragm I must also breathe through my diaphragm more than the others which would use up more of the pure oxygen. That was his theory behind it and since he is the expert I’ll agree with that. After the last dive we returned to Airlie beach. Since I did all four dives I received a “free” t-shirt and DVD with the pictures from our dives.

That Monday I was exhausted and decided to hit the sack early in order to wake up for our plane adventure over the Great Barrier Reef. We caught a bus out to the very small Whitsunday Airport and boarded a 9 passenger plane to go for a one our flight over the reef. After sitting on our first plane for about ten minutes the captain informed us that the engine wasn’t running properly. I don’t think he knew what he was doing and I started to get worried when we changed into a smaller plane. Luckily we took off and ended up alright. We had some great views of Whitehaven Beach and the other spots we went to on the catamaran, as well as a dip into the water right over actual Great Barrier Reef.
Pictures from the plane window did not do these views justice, but it was so amazing. This is "The Heart Reef". It is really amazing to see in person.
After the flight we went to catch the bus where it dropped us off. (There wasn’t actually a bus stop at the ‘airport’ because it was so small. The bus driver who dropped us off told us to go to the other side of the street and just waive him down.) Unfortunately, the buses driving by us After over 30 minutes of standing outside in the rain we began getting silly and desperate. Ali started holding out her thumb and pretending to hitchhike and a man pulled out of the airport and actually stopped to pick us up. He seemed nice but we were all a little worried about getting into a car with a stranger. Then we decided it may be our only option and it would get us out of the rain. We jumped in and yes, we’re lucky that he was a nice Samaritan. He took us right back where we needed to be in Airlie beach.
Since our last day at the beach was rainy, the big ending to our vacation ended up being a visit to Vic Hislop’s Great White Shark and Whale Expo. It was interesting reading about his efforts to protect whales, turtles, seals and even humans from very dangerous and deadly predators of the ocean. That night we boarded a plane back to Sydney and I realized that the next time I’ll be getting on a plane would be a month from now when I’m headed home. I cannot believe how quickly this time has flown by. I already have the next few weekends of my time here planned out, and a lot of it involves what I’ve been doing these past two days non-stop, school. It looks like my fun adventures and excursions have come to an end and that was a very sad realization.