Saturday, July 14
So much for getting to sleep in on vacation - up early once again to be back at the same marina as yesterday - but this time for a much exciting (and much less adrenaline-packed) adventure. Today we got to go on an all-day sailing trip to Whitehaven beach, through the Whitsunday Islands while riding in a bright purple catamaran (which you can sort of see in later pictures). Heads up - we took lots of pictures today. Here is an abbreviated version.
The morning started like this:
Quite a lovely way to see the islands. Here is a view from our bow:
It felt very Pirates of the Caribbean.
Here we are:
Then it began to rain. But not for long! By the time we made it to Whitehaven beach - the sun had finally come out - first time in two weeks - and it was beautiful.
We played in the water that was so glassy - the horizon and the sky blended together:
We also went on a short "bushwalk" and found some giant lizards:
After an hour and a half playing in the sun (we were so afraid of getting sunburned, I even pulled out my sunguard t-shirt), we returned to the boat for a barbecue lunch that was surprisingly Sabrina-safe - there were ingredients listed for everything and the array was impressive. Stephen had steak, chicken, fish, and pork (in his words - he had the animal kingdom) - I had lettuce and vegetables and grains - between the two of us, we had the whole food pyramid.
After lunch, our boat took us to a snorkel site, which we thought would be a great opportunity to finally take some fish pictures since we took absolutely 0 while SCUBA diving. Here are some pictures of that:
Thank goodness for our stinger suits - the water was cold!
This is a sea cucumber - we saw them often.
This is coral (and some small fishes):
This is a giant sea turtle!!! We saw three or four in less than 20 minutes in about a 50ft radius of each other - Stephen even swam with one for a while (you can see him and me swimming below):
This is a fish - much less cool than the turtles, but figured we should include one fish picture:
We were the first ones in the water and definitely the last ones out - despite the cold, the snorkeling was unbelievably good. One of the coolest parts about the snorkeling was our entrance into the water - it felt very covert ops as we sat on the edge of the boat and rolled backwards into the water - just like James Bond.
Once we were forced to return to the main boat, we dried off, headed to the complimentary bar, and sat on the bow of the boat and watched the sun set. It was fabulously relaxing - here are some of the views we had:
We returned to shore around 6pm, returned to our hotel, showered, and headed into town for one more dinner - we opted for noodles again, trying new dishes, and enjoying them just as much. We returned back to the hotel to repack all of our clothes and prepare to fly to Brisbane tomorrow.
Today was fantastic - and ranks number 2 (behind SCUBA) for Stephen and number 3 (behind SCUBA and Featherdale Wildlife Park) for me as best adventures on our month-long travel to date. Hope the rest of the days are as amazing as this one!
Beautiful pics!
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