Wow, I can't believe how far behind I am in recording all of the wonderful things we've been doing here in Australia. May 2 until now June 30, is almost too long ago for my air conditioned brain to recall events. Lucky for me, 5 weeks of that time was spent at home in Calgary.
The Whitsunday area is a nice boating destination directly across from Airlie Beach on the mainland, with many small islands, resorts, beaches, diving, anchorages and so forth. It must be said though that there are few anchorages that protect well from the persistent south easterly winds that seemed to blow a constant 20 knots for the first 5 days that we were there. Stronger winds means bigger swells and the swell at anchor is the killer. Cid Harbor is a good safe place as well as Stone haven Bay, these became our outside bases.
Finally we got into the water again for some diving and although the visibility wasn't great, the underwater life is definitely wonderful and diverse. This is a popular tourist destination, so the local dive operators feed the fishes in order to give their clients lots to see……But…then these fishes expect that "everybody" should feed them. One very large giant trevally (type of fish) decided that my hand was food and grabbed a large chunk out of it! Besides hurting like crazy, now I am bleeding profusely…."Shark!" enters my mind. So, here I am, diving, one hand clasping tightly over the other to prevent bleeding and trying to carry on enjoying my dive (we had just entered the water). I'm here to tell the tale, so obviously survived.
When Oso Blanco rejoined us on anchor, we all decided that with a calm window of weather for the next few days, we would head out to the outer reef, some 25 miles from the Whitsunday Group. We anchored behind Line Reef across from Hook Reef, which we could find because of our chart plotters, but that was not visible to the eye until the lowest of low tide. To somebody looking at us, you would think that we were anchored in the middle of the ocean. It made me recall the question that so many people asked us when we first left North America to cross the Pacific to the Marquesas, "What do you do at night? Anchor?" The only response to that was "No, it is several thousand feet deep." But if we had anchored, how we looked at Line Reef, was how it would have been. Did that make sense? O.K. so we are here to dive…The "Real" Great Barrier Reef. I have to admit, we were a bit disappointed, poor vis being the biggest problem, big current and too much commercialism - there is a tourist barge (Pontoon) permanently moored here that sees 100's of tourist a day, they arrive on large power cats (boats). Glen and I did find some beautiful bommies (coral boulders) with lots of life to see, so all was not lost.
The main resort island of the Whitsunday Group is Hamilton Island. It is a big commercial project owned by Mr. Robert Oatley (or so the brochures claim). Mr. Oatley's granddaughter qualified for the Australian Dressage team for the London Olympics 2012. (Just a side note) There are restaurants, shops, hotels, holiday rentals and a marina here, all very, very nice. We are docking here for the next 5 weeks so that we can go home. It is nice to go out for dinner again and the restaurants are all pretty good quality, with Bommies being absolutely "note worthy". We take a day to explore the island and go through the process of renting a golf cart for a day to tour the island, 8:00 am to 5:00pm, Will we have enough time???? By 11:30 am, we have driven every street on the island and have turned our cart back in. I guess we should have walked it; we would have at least spent the day doing it. We found it pretty funny. Hamilton Island has an airport and we fly from here to Sydney, spend the night and then fly back to Canada.
