Day 215-218 - The Whitsundays

Day 215 (Saturday 17th) - Hanging Out

Once we were on the boat we were shown to our quarters (I was in the 6 bed room, with Marco, a couple called Will & Laura, and two friends calls Bea and Kathryn - the last four all English), then we left the harbour and headed out to sea. I had a long chat with Bea about geeky things - she's a web developer - and then played some cards with Kathryn and a couple of English gap year girls from Tunbridge Wells called Harriet/Haddy and Lucy/TJ, who seem like a lot of fun. We didn't really make it too late, only to about half 11 I think, before we collapsed into bed. The boat is full, 32 passengers in all, including a few youngish couples and a few older ones (German and English), as well as a group of German girls. I think this is going to be pretty chilled out, and I sort of regret buying a cheap bottle of Bourbon, and smuggling it aboard in an apple juice bottle.

Day 216 (Sunday 18th) - Getting Acquainted

A word about our crew - we have Captain Marcus, a bloke with a very droney voice who seems to be having a pretty good time all the time, Botswain Adrian/Ado, who seem like an alright bloke and is in charge of the other crew, Host (read cook) Shelly, who does all the cooking (which was awesome by the way, we had satay chicken, roast beef, BBQ sausages, awesome lunches and an incredible array of impromptu snacks, including nachos, fresh fruit and many other delights), Tim the Deckhand, who is also in charge of the bar and generally helps out, Aaron/Azza - I'm not sure of his title but he's below Ado and above Timmy, and is bronzed, blonde and very self-confident to the point of arrogance, but is also pretty funny. There is also Sarah, a hot blonde Canadian volunteer, who turned out to be pretty quiet but nice enough. The girls were bitching about her later, much to will and my bewilderment.

Up early for breakfast, we discovered there is a Bedbug epidemic aboard ship. I have a few bites, various people claimed to have seen them, and TJ is covered in them. I had sprayed my bed with the stuff Forrest recommended, and sprayed myself with insect repellent, all to no avail. Haddy and I found we were allowed in the bow net while the ship was moving, which we took full advantage of. I inducted her into the ways of the Ben Bruce, and got a fine one in the net, as well as one from Marco as well. Our stop for the morning was Whitehaven Beach, which has incredibly pure silica sand (although it wasn't as impressive as the Esperance beaches, in my opinion). Stinger suits were donned, and I went for a bit of a swim then played some frisbee with the girls and Steve for a bit. After lunch the sails were hoisted and we went for our first sail, albeit at a slow pace. This was pretty cool, just cruising round the islands, sunning ourselves on the roof of the bar, chatting nonsense and having a laugh. I met Laura and Will properly at this point, they are a couple from Essex (19 & 23 respectively) and are both about to start Uni in London in september. will is really funny, in a dry quick-fire, one-liner kind of way. Laura's really friendly and nice, as well as being gorgeous. They are a good laugh, although Will keeps comparing the way I talk and laugh to Ricky Gervais. Not such a bad thing I suppose. We sailed until sunset, then retired to the bar for a few drinks and card games, which was a lot of fun. I think we lasted until about 11 or so - this is becoming a theme, early rising and early crashing out.

Day 217 (Monday 19th) - Snorkelling, Swinging and Drinking

We were up and breakfasted pretty early, then headed to a little beach in Luncheon Bay to do some snorkelling - it was pretty cool, saw the standard tropical fish and so on, but no turtles, rays or sharks or anything cool. We then climbed the rocks surrounding Luncheon Bay for a while, from where there were some pretty awesome views. After lunch we headed to another snorkel spot which was about the same, but out at sea a bit with more corals. I honestly can't really remember what we did, but I know I got an underwater Ben Bruce from Hayley (with Steve's legs flailing in the corner). We sunbathed most of the afternoon, anchored for sunset and rope swinging, and had an awesome roast dinner followed by a few rounds of Ring Of Fire. Azza joined us for this - apart from the odd bit of anchor hauling and sail hoisting, all Azza seems to do is make jokes and grab bits of girls - which he was doing a lot of during the rope swinging - and get paid for it. Awesome job. The games were so much fun that TJ and my stomach muscles were in a lot of pain on tuesday. The genius rule of "you must flap your arms every time you laugh" caused more arm flapping every time it was followed, in a kind of hilarious vicious circle. We learnt a lot about each other in the obligatory 'I Have Never' round, and I dressed as Will to help the "call everyone by the name of the person on their left" rule, which was kind of wierd. Laura and TJ lost the two rounds and so had to drink the bowl of contribs, which they did with impressively little fuss - also, brilliantly, TJ Ben Bruced after both of them. Champion. The shortness of these entries belies the immense amount of fun we were having - constant laughs, pretty much, for three days solid.

Day 218 (Tuesday 20th) - Back To The Mainland

Hayley had the idea of getting up for sunrise, so we were all up before 6 today - we forgot that as there was an island to the east of us, sunrise would in fact just be us watching the sun come over the hill, while it was already light. This didn't seem to dissuade anyone though, and we all sat along the edge in jumpers and blankets, with hot chocolate and the like. This was followed by a very early breakfast, a briefing and a bushwalk from Sawmill Beach to Dugong Beach (I forget which island this was on). At the latter we made a 15 person pyramid, topped by Will wearing nothing but his pants - when he was asked to join in, he immediately stripped and ran to the top, for some reason. On the walk back (a kilometre or so through the bush) we saw a Gould's Goanna wandering through the undergrowth, then we saw a bigger one (at least a metre) when we got back to the other side. We played frisbee for a while and when we got back to the boat people were already ropeswinging - this was to be our last opportunity to do so. Backflips were attempted, and failed on all occasions. Lunch was served at 11ish, then the boat was readied for sailing - we were going to sail all the way back, which would take most of the afternoon. It turned into a fantastically hot day, almost swelteringly so in fact. I lay on the deck with Haddy, TJ, Laura and Will, and we counted bites - TJ had 125 visible bites just on her back and legs, I have 80 or so (they got bored of the counting, so Laura made an educated guess). At one point the girls were whispering about something Will said - I listened in, and found out that he had been saying I looked like Hugh Fearnley-Sodding-Whittingstall. When I accused him of this he denied all knowledge, claiming that he had said Johnny Depp, and it was all Laura's fault. The bar tabs were added up, and mine came to an impressive $88.50 - 23 beers and a few cokes, which were used to consume some of the bourbon I smuggled aboard - Ring Of Fire is a dangerous game. I'm not too sure how we filled the hours, but it was a lot of fun doing so (usually here I would write a load about how awesome these guys are and how sorry I'll be, and how travelling is made hard by these fleeting friendships made all the stronger by their short spans, but I can't be bothered as it'll get me down and I'm meant to be going out tonight, so let's pretend I wrote that here). We are all going out - by all I mean Me, Marco, Laura, Will, Hayley, Steve, Haddy, TJ, Azza and bloody annoying Amy - for dinner and drinks tonight, as a farewell or whatever.

I haven't mentioned Steve or Hayley at all, I just realised - they're a Canadian couple from Alberta, who are pretty cool - Hayley's lovely, that's the only adjective I can think of. Very concerned about my welfare and whether or not I had enough sun screen etc. Steve's a laugh as well, sometimes a wee bit slow on the uptake, but funny as a result.

Oh, I should mention that there hasn't been a cloud in the sky since I got on that boat - perfect weather the whole time.