Airlie Beach, Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef

2/7/2015

Airlie Beach

Quick drive up the coast, many sugar cane fields and as it is harvesting season, a lot of machinery out in the fields and trainloads of sugar cane being transported to the mills.

Stopping for the cane train to pass

Airlie Beach is an amazing place – a beautiful little village, busting with people that either just have been out on the Whitsunday Islands or the Great Barrier Reef or are just about going out to visit these spectacular places.

The lagoon, a huge swimming pool in the center of town (and free for everybody to use!) is fantastic, people are hanging out here, recovering from a hard night in the bars or sleepless night on a sailing boat, children are playing and the vibe is extremely casual and relaxing.

I checked in for my 3 day Whitsunday and outer Reef tour on the MS Kiana and then drove to the best campground in the area, called Seabreeze. Great place to rest and relax too.

I walked the Bicentennial Track from the campsite to the northern marina, where I'll board the Kiana tomorrow morning, visited another dive shop to check if they can find me on the PADI system (unfortunately not) and then strolled into the center of Airlie Beach for a much needed coffee.

... that one hasn't made it back!

Pool at Seabreeze

What a cool corc as logo

There was a sausage sizzle on in the campground and two lovely people played some live country music. I didn't buy any of the sausages, and instead had a healthy mixed salad with goat feta, avocado and boiled eggs to finish as much fresh produce as possible from my little fridge.

The two performers on stage looked like former hippies, and from what I heard during the gig they are living in a small community close to Nimbin (that explains a lot, so probably real hippies!). They were delivering a great performance. The female singer had a wonderful voice and was playing guitar, and her friend was playing banjo and ukulele and singing a bit at times as well. Music straight from the heart! They were in Townsville before for a gig and somebody stole their car and a lot of their equipment. While they got the car back after a while, a lot of their music equipment was missing, all up worth around $ 5000. A lot of people put some money in their basket tonight – that is, from my perspective money well spent.

I'll have a relatively quiet night today, need to be at the boat early and its about a 20 minute walk from here.

Distance traveled: 160km

3-5/7/2015

Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef

Living on-board of MS Kiana

What an awesome 3 days I had on MS Kiana and fully enjoying our sailing, snorkeling and diving adventures!

The MS Kiana is a 16.3m long motor sailing boat that is designed for live on-board dive trips. There is a maximum of 14 guests on board and 3 crew members. We were only a group of 9 people for this trip, so it wasn't as crowded as it could have been and we only had two groups for dives which meant we could all spend more time in and under water. Happy days!

The freshly painted MS Kiana - just out from the dry dock this morning for the yearly maintenance

Brent, the captain has been on the MS Kiana for 15 years and does these trips, sailing around the Whitsundays and when weather permits, going out to the 'outer reef' as they call it in Airlie, which is the part of the Great Barrier Reef that is closest to Airlie. Stefan, a Canadian, is the dive instructor on board and the deck hand. Meredith, from California, is the chef and pushed out some great food from the small kitchen (for a boat!).

The sea was quite choppy and the wind mostly between 15 and 25 knots. That made for some really bumpy rides and several of my fellow travelers were sea sick despite taking medication before going on board. When it got really rough, I had to be in the fresh air as well and keeping the horizon in sight. What a ride! On the last day we did a full sail for several hours, switching off the motor completely and just gliding through the water powered by the wind. That is one of my absolute favorite ways of being propelled. It feels amazing from my perspective, no vibrations in the hull that you can feel and a steady progress cutting through the water with the captain on the rudder to keep the best possible course and to catch the wind in the best way.

I remember some years ago, when I was invited by Andrew in Fremantle to go sailing, I could practice being on the wheel as well and it was more difficult than expected. Depending on the trim of your sails, if you turn the boat just a few degrees incorrectly it can slow you down significantly.

Anyway, we saw some humpback whales but only very briefly on several occasions, had a pack of pacific bottlenose dolphins swimming in the wave of our bow for a while, saw some turtles coming up for a breath when we were anchoring at a bay of Hook island and enjoyed many, many hours of rough, bouncy rides. Bait reef, a tiny little part of the Great Barrier Reef, is more than 60km off shore. That was where we stayed for the second night on board and where we had some amazing dive and snorkeling trips.

But back to the start: The first day started with some sailing in the morning to get out of the marina in Airlie and cruise around the Whitsundays. The first stop at was on Whitsunday island to go up to the lookout and see Whitehaven beach and the amazing colores made by water and sand. Whithaven beach is often voted as one of the best beaches of the world. And this time, compared to when I was there 9 years ago, we had blue sky and the right tide to produce a view worth remembering:

After the lookout and taking hundreds of photos as a group, we went down to enjoy the white sand on the beach. Unfortunately there can be are dangerous and poisonous stingers (Quallen), hence it is policy on all boat tours that you must wear a stinger suit (like a thin dive suit) to enter the water. As nobody could be bothered to get changed there, we went for a walk, took more photos, saw some small rays in the shallow waters and then got picked up by dinghy to go back to our boat.

We continued to Hook island and anchored in one of the protected bays for dinner and stayed there over night. After a 6 am breakfast the next morning, to make the most of the day, the certified divers got onto their first trip (I should have been on there!) and the rest went snorkeling. It was amazing to see that many fish and corals even when only snorkeling. Thanks to the lowish tide, the reef was very close. After the first group came back, we geared up for the introductory dive and were dropped off near the beach. We went through the required exercises and afterwards were able to dive for about 15 minutes. Luck struck and we saw a sea turtle just one minute into the dive that stayed around us for a while. Magnificent!

Our spot for the first night

The trip out to the Great Barrier Reef took about 2.5 hours and as noted above, was at times very rough. Again, we were lucky because if the wind would have been just a little bit stronger, we wouldn't have gone out there at all and instead would have stayed around the more protected Whitsundays. Out there we went for another dive in the afternoon. I was the only person in the second group, so I went in with the dive instructor as my buddy to dive. The current around the dive site “the stepping stones” at Bait reef was quite strong and I had too much weight on my belt for this dive and being in the water shortly after lunch didn't help either. Saw quite a lot of small and large fish, including a lot of parrot fish – eating coral. And we heard some Humpback whales singing in the distance. Amazing! Snorkeling after the dive was great too – drifting over and along the reef because of the current, and Brent picking us up with the little boat when we were tired. When the first group resurfaced, we saw some humpback whales passing maybe about 100m next to them – but they couldn't see them.

I chose the upper bed, short, small and extremely low, but hey, we are on a sailing boat!

Toilet, bathroom, shower, all in one - unbelievable how compact you can build things if need be

Dinner was great again and everybody went to bet really early again, as the breakfast for the next day was set for 6.00am again. I was the last one on deck at 5.59am, and everybody was already stuck into the breakfast assortment. Another snorkeling trip with the two girls from France and Canada and afterwards a dive at a site called 'Hawaii' at Bait Reef with Stefan and Camille, the Canadian girl. A lot of really big fish and thousands of smaller ones. It is amazing to dive and snorkel on such a reef – it is like being in an enormous aquarium surrounded by hundreds of thousands of organisms to look at. The massive Humphead Maori Wrasse (called Napoleon), that can grow to up to 2.3 meters, Golden Travally and Turrum that can both be up to 1.2m long were swimming around us, coming really close at times to get a good look at us. Well and then there are the thousands of small reef fish that come in unbelievable colours and sizes. The little clown fish (Nemo!) in their corals could be spotted at all my dives. And again, we could hear some humpback whales communicating, but probably several kilometers away. Absolutely amazing, and another thing I had on my bucket list!

The other group of divers even saw two black tip reef sharks, and two green turtles.

Always checking what you saw after the dive on the materials available on the boat

Started from the lower left corner, through the Whitsunday islands and then to the first, left reef in the right corner

Bait reef, with many awesome dive sites!

The dinghy on the stern of the boat

On this trip, we all between 25 and 35 years old, and extremely international: 2 couples from the US, 1 couple from Germany living in Swizerland, the French and the Canadian girl and I. What absolutely surprised me was how little alcohol was consumed. Sean had one beer yesterday and I had one glass of wine to celebrate being and staying at the Great Barrier Reef. That was it. For 2 evenings and 12 people in total. Odd!

Our captain Brent, dropping off and picking up people where necessary

It was really interesting to getting to know some of the people on the boat. Sean for example is an engineer in the navy on a submarine. Finally somebody I could ask about many things I always wondered how the would work on a submarine. In short: I knew it before, but now I'm quite certain that I don't want to work on a submarine in the military!

Sailing towards the marina

This beauty can be chartered for $35,000 a week - maybe next time ;-)

Not sure yet if I believe in this kind of evolution

I stayed another night at Seabreeze Campground as I felt really tried from the last three days and the ground was still slightly shaking, probably not too good for driving!

Distance traveled: many, many miles on sea