The Whitsundays, ahh the Whitsundays, a paradise on earth to many and a scary deathtrap to the unfortunate few. So we had the big two, Fraser and Whitsundays, and with Fraser safely tucked away in the pocket, we move on to her beautiful sister. You may have had a look at the wonderful pictures other people have taken on this very website, and said to yourself "bloody hell, that looks a bit of alright, I quite fancy a butchers at that!" and I don't think anyone would begrudge you. Well I'm here to tell you behind every picture lies a harrowing and for the people involved a somewhat disturbing story , so just bare in mind when your looking at these fantastic images and dreaming your days away, they've not come without a price and with no exaggeration, we've risked our own lives to produce them(thanks all the guys at of Flikr.com for the use of the images!)
It was a beautiful Thursday morning(not Sunday, to my disappointment!) and we have a lovely three day cruise to look forward to, the travel agent in Sydney was quick to spin it to our tastes, " A fantastic, romantic voyage upon the smaller of our two boats, where you can indulge your senses in the paradise that is the Whitsunday Islands"
Imagine our surprise to be standing on a pier in a crowd of sixty with an increadibly wired Canadian shouting " get your butts up here! your wasting time! we've only got three days to fit in a Guiness World Record attempt at the most obscene amout of drinking and partying you can imagine"
Buoyed however by our wonderful other group adventure on Fraser Island, we were more than happy to leave our flip flops on the pier(boat orders) and jump on board our gleeming white 50ft'er. Now, you may be wondering what makes the Whitsundays the backpack Mecca it is, well, imagine every tropical paradise you've seen on the telly, there's the palm trees, the green water, the white beaches, and here's the killer for us, it sits on the inner barrier reef, you heard me, barrier reef(of Australia fame), which means a fantastic opportunity, to don a snorkel and mask and have a closer look at some tropical fish(kinda like a luxury visit to the FishBowl but without the sales assistants).
All was going well, we had spent the first day cruising, getting to know the locals(other backpackers(asking our 2 questions)) and generally soaking up the sun and relaxing, I must admit I welcomed the break away from all those endless days lying on beaches, swimming in the sea, going to places of interest and general mulling, it was lounging with an excuse, this was a organised trip to see one of the wonders of Australia you know.
Our home for the evenings was the delightful South Mole island(named after the Antarctic rodent explorer who discovered it), this is a real piece of paradise, which conveniently had a very large hotel developed on it. A little less fortunately the management of said hotel had over the years become wise to these tours, and had built a purpose built section away from the main complex for our ugly mugs, which to be fair suited us as much as the overpaying other guests. Our evenings were to be be spent getting very drunk(not me or Jules, very sensible we are) playing drinking games and generally being extremely rowdy then, here's where the managements didn't think it through, off to use the hotel's bar and pool, I can tell you the look we got from the three 9 year old girls singing sclub7's reach for the stars on the kareoke, was priceless. I tried to explain to the hotel manager that everyone was just trying to join in, and that they were all massive fans of the group and that they were only wet because the pool wasn't sufficiently lit, and although the girls were crying, they weren't really upset just really, really excited that they had made new friends! But he wasn't having it, and unfortunately if your thinking of travelling to South Mole Island don't book with Koala Tours, as they no longer offer the island as a destination.
Anyhoo, day 2 and the bit we'd been waiting for, the snorkelling adventure of a life time, we spent the first part of the day with a bit more touring about, first Whitehaven beach, the most beautiful beach on the planet(people always need to rank things, but it certainly in my top 5), an then to our spot, according to our skipper, one of the best spots in the whole barrier reef for snorkelling, and he would know he runs a tour there.
The waters around the Queensland coast are a bit treturous, unfortunatley the problem isn't sharks or such like, that wouldn't be so bad, a quick punch on the nose and send them on their way, no the problem here are tiny jellyfish, which if touched by the bare skin can cause
death, and this far out in the middle of nowhere, all I can say is I hope yourself and the rest of the crew have been drinking a lot of liquid and there just so happens to be a tape of a flowing river playing in the background.
Or luckily, the clever people of Australia have tackled this problem and invented a Stinger Suit. Which isn't a wet suit, but more like a giant pair of swimming trunks that covers the whole body, and even better than protecting you from death, also makes you look like a super hero, until wet, then makes you look just a little fat.
All adoned in our suits, and with the appropriate amount of spit in our diving masks we climb aboard the inflatable speed boat. Due to the nature of the reef the big 50ft'er can't get that close so it has to be anchored a good distance away, the more adventureous, enthusiastic or drunk, swimming the 100 or so miles to the reef, the less adventurous, enthusiastic or drunk, getting set down right on top of it.
For weak swimmers or the oriental members of the group, there's the option of a noodle, a long inflatable piece of foam tubing, designed to keep you afloat but not much else, inevitably they tend to be dragged behind or ultimately left by ever increasingly annoyed individuals.
Woooowweee! I should learn to be more trusting of tour guides, because on this occasion he wasn't far off the money, there was such a wide array of beautiful coloured fish and really interestingly coral(actually a jelly fish..didn't know that), and my personal favourite the hugh elvis fish, so named from his tour of Las Vegas in the 70''s . Anyway we spent what must have been the best part of an hour swimming around the reef pretending to be aquatic, it wasn't until you raised your head did you realise the illusion of grace was just that, in reality, a gaggle of 50 people trying their best to keep afloat and not get a flipper in the face whilst all wearing brightly luminous whole body pants.
It was at this point that myself and Jules stumbled upon a rather juicy piece of fortune. Just when, dare I say it, we were getting a little bored, what should appear beneath us but a couple of divers. Once over my pang of jealousy, we realised we now had a new species to observe, and quickly started up the flipper motors and we were off, hot on their heals. But wait, oh no! one of the divers has lost his little pouch with his under water map in it, I know, I'll swim down and retrieve it for him(or her, difficult to tell in rubber!). I've never met anyone without the ability to communicate, be so grateful! They decided to show their gratitude in what I thought initially to be in a bit of a rude manner, but apparently throwing fish food at people you've never met just happens to be the nicest present a diver can give a snorkeler. For, in a couple of seconds, bang!, crash!, wallop!, smack!, thuuwwwp!, pow!, fiiiiiiiisssshhh! the whole reef decided to awaken from it's slumber, and the dosile meandering fish decided to become killing machines. Not one part of our body left exposed, we were literaly being softly nibbled alive by close to a million brightly covered fish. For the best part of about 5 seconds this was extremely exilhirating, then as it wouldn't stop it became a little frightening.....suffice to say it died down after a while and the reef went back to its sleepy state. Pleased by our extra special adventure we popped our heads up out of the water......only to greeted by every snorkelers worst nightmare....... where were all the rest of the snorkelers?........ where was the boat?
What were we going to do?
As it turned out this would have been a little more scary if:
a) we hadn't been 200m from a beach,
b) The boat was still visible, all be it quite far away
and crucially
c) I didn't just happened to have a noodle
I'll like to mention at this point, not only did we have to deal with the fear of being stranded in the middle of the open ocean, but also the jiggers and taunts of the other 50 members of our group on our return to the boat. Sometimes I just think people don't take life seriously enough!
Labels: Gary
