We started the day early - 7 AM, which was fine for me (and B who was in bed last night at 7:30 due to partying even harder than me in Airlie) but a lot of my shipmates were hurting pretty hard, having been pounding back beer and goon til late in the night. Regardless, Bluey (the captain) was full steam ahead and breakfast was on the table. Tea, toast, cereal and fruit salad was a nice start to the day, though something didn't sit well with me. I headed down under the deck to throw on my shorts and sunblock and the smell under there combined with the ocean got to me and I made a mad rush upstairs to the bathroom to relieve myself of breakfast. Stupid ocean, all wavy and such...
Feeling much better, we shortly arrived at Whitsunday Island (what the whole group of islands are named after) and were boated ashore by the deck hand in a little open Marines-style boat, a few people at a time. The Whitsunday Islands don't look as I expected (tropical vegetation with white beaches) and instead look basically like BC, with spruce trees, rocky cliff sides and brown sand beaches. Whitsunday Island is the expection, because after we walked through a forest area we came to Whitsunday beach (or more specifically the section known as Betty's Beach named for some old lady that used to take care of it) which looks like the postcards with miles of white sand. Unfortunately for us, it was cloudy and grey out. Alas, we all laid out our towels, some went swimming (we had to wear wetsuit though to protect from jellyfish which may be around there this time of year) and many went exploring the vast beach. We shortly came across the weirdest thing I've ever seen - thousands of little spider-like "soldier" crabs (with a round head/body and legs beneath) moving across the sand like a wave. Looking around, we saw there were dozens of clusters of crabs, all moving together creating an eerie wind-like noise. We started snapping pictures like we worked for National Geographic and witnessed that once you got close enough, the crabs would burrow themselves under the sand. It would take about 3 seconds for them to fully disappear under the surface as the crabs further ahead continued to scuttle along. The beach was also full of millions of tiny balls of sand, created by the crabs as they ate bits of food from the ground. Once we had a sufficient amount of crab photos, we walked back to the main beach area and played catch with a new toy I picked up in Airlie called a SkimBall. It's a ball a little smaller than a racquetball that's squishy and can bounce off the surface of the water. So we lined up maybe 20 feet apart, whipped the ball at the water somewhere between us, and it would skip off the water over to the other person. Very cool and very fun. We headed back to the boat for lunch (sandwiches and wraps, yum!) then sailed over to a reef in a bay for snorkeling.
Suited up in our stinger suits, we were dropped off at a beach where the reef began. We got to snorkel for a couple hours and saw loads of bright fish, colorful coral and even a turtle. Very enjoyable and probably the best snorkelling I've done before (take that Mexico and Cuba!). After we finished and were all back on the boat, Bluey grabbed some hotdogs and lured in the hawks and eagles that were circling the reef. He'd whistle and wave the meat while standing on the roof of the control room then hurl the hotdog into the air and the eagles (then later the hawks) would swoop down and catch it with their talons then soar off back to their nest to enjoy the snack. He also tossed bread into the water that was gobled up viciously by bat fish, which look like a sideways frisbee. So creepy and entertaining.
Dinner tonight was delicious spaghetti and meat sauce and afterwards there was noticeably less drinking by most, although a few went hard again. I still felt borderline queasy, so I didn't touch my goon tonight either, allowing the others to enjoy it for me. Buying goon and not drinking it is the best $15 wasted ever. After reading the ingredients of this so-called wine that includes eggs and traces of fish, I don't think I'll ever be drinking it. Once it got dark, the crew flipped on a spotlight into the water where we watched massive shark-looking fish swim around and try to eat little finger-sized silver fish on the surface. But the silver fish were so wicked fast and would jump out of the water, skipping around like a fishing lure skipping over the water when you reel it in really fast. So there would be 4 or 5 of the huge fish that would thrash around trying to catch the little ones that would be flipping around on the surface lightning fast and rarely did the little ones get caught. The ocean in this bay tonight is calmer than last night, so the boat isn't rocking as much and sleeping is easier.
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