I'm on a Boat!! The Whitsunday Islands and Airlie Beach

Alright, so the last little bit of the best 10 days of my life ends in Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands.  We took the long ass bus ride to Airlie...the ride wasn't bad at all, just kinda listened to music and tried sleeping for most of the time.  We got to Airlie early in the morning, probably around like 8 or 9 am...it was a beautiful day, definitely appreciated after the rainy camp nights and long bus ride.  So we got our bags and checked into the travel agency where we confirmed our boating trip which was leaving at 12 that arvo (afternoon).  Seeing that we had a couple of hours to spare, we went exploring around Airlie.  Its pretty much one road that makes up the entire area...obviously very touristy, but so quaint and cute.  We got a dank breakfast (that was actually pretty cheap too) overlooking the water.  Airlie also had a sweet public pool thing like Brisbane did...they're everywhere in Australia apparently, pretty cool eh?  After Brekkie me and the girls headed off to do some shopping then went to the marina and got some last minute supplies (the very necessary goon, mmmmm).

The marina was absolutely amazing, of course.  I fell in love with this little town right away, I'm not kidding...if I end up moving to Australia (which is a good chance) I want to move to Airlie.  Anyways, so we met the crew and the rest of the passengers (18 ppl altogether, including us) and got to boating. Our boat was called the PowerPlay...it was so tight! We had a salt water hot tub at the front...like wtf, how lucky are we? We drove out for a couple hours then posted up at one of the islands and got ready for our first snorkel dive of the day.  We had to wear the AWESOME looking stinger suits again, and by AWESOME I actually mean AWESOME cause I thought they looked pretty badass.  We saw so much stuff...it was the Great Barrier Reef again, but I thought these dives were way better than the ones we did in Cairns.  Over the course of the three days on the boat we probably dove like 6 or so times, I can't really remember exactly.  All I know is that we saw like 4 sea turtles, a white reef shark and a lemon shark (yayaay), some sting rays, TONS of jellyfish, and obviously a ridiculous amount of fish and coral, including nemos! 

At my favorite dive spot on the second day there were literally thousands of jellies everywhere! It wasn't bad though cause they didn't sting at all...no one knew this at first, but I just started swimming and because there were so many of them there was no way to not glide past them with hands, feet or face...and since nothing was happening I was like what the eff, they must not sting so I just started playing with them, so cool! The best part was that all of our guys were scared out of their minds and us girls didnt give a shit...they wouldnt touch the jellyfish for the longest time, we would catch them swimming with their hands out of the water...it was hilarious! Obviously they got over it when I started picking the jellies up, it was just a funny moment.  

Another fav of mine was also on the 2nd day.  It was the first of the sea turtles we saw.  Me and my buddy Alex literally followed the thing forever...we went passed where we were supposed to swim, but we were obsessed with it.  Its mesmerizing watching them glide through the water. I was talking about it with Stacy and we were saying how small we felt being under water, just surrounded by all the reefs and fish...it was a crazy feeling.  Kinda like what I was talking about before with Fraser Island...being alone and away from civilization, such an amazing feeling! If theres anything I take back home with me after my 5 months in Australia, its that feeling.  Because of that, I'm definitely getting certified for diving and I'm pretty sure I realized that doing criminology was the wrong major and I should have done Marine Biology like I had planned before...oh well, I'll just get a job on a boat for the rest of my life...I would be the happiest person alive to just live on the water for days on end.

Alright, I know I know, pretty sappy...so on to other stuff! The crew on PowerPlay was awesome! I'm in love with them all! The skipper (capt), Nick, came off as really serious at first, but he was the man...me and Stac would pretty much bother him for hours on end everyday...just hanging out on the top of the boat with him while he drove, I'm pretty sure we were his favorites, but thats not surprising huh? haha JKKKKK...but yeah, he was telling us some insane stories...he was saying how one of the craziest things hes ever seen while out boating in the Whitsundays was when this dolphin was chasing after this flying fish and almost got it, but just missed it at the last minute and the flying fish took off and right when it was about to lift complete out of the water, out of nowhere another dolphin jumps out of the water and almost nabs it again, the flying fish freaks out and takes off into the air and just when it thinks its safe, out of nowhere again a massive sea eagle swoops down and grabs it...all of this happened in like a matter of 30 seconds...I thought it was a pretty cool story. Anyways, there was also the Dive Instructor dude, Duncan (from the UK and like 25 or something), who I totally had a school girl crush on...he was the funniest person ever and cool as hell, so laid back! He kinda looks like Chris Martin, weird right? But yeah, he was the crazy, cool, fun one who was really passionate about diving and the like and also did a pretty good Borat impression...amazing...and he got along with us loudass Americans, good times.  Then there was Jake who was also young and SO adorable...he was the hostess for our trip, meaning he cooked all the meals (which can go down as some of the best meals I've had since in Australia).  He was chill as hell too, totally fit in with our group...and lastly, there was this trainee, crap, I forgot her name...I wanna say Alisha or something, anyways, she was really really nice and outgoing and once again, I loved her too! After our last day on the boat, we met up with the crew peeps at a bar called Beaches which was right near our hostel...good times for sure. However, this was the first of 2 nights where I was a complete retard and lost everything I own...really though, I lost my drivers license and debit card and all my cash...sweet right? I'm thinking it somehow got thrown away or something, who knows...then the second night we all went out again and did some bar hopping...I don't think I've danced so much in my life...me and the boys were tearing up the dance floor and good ole Stac was documenting it all, no joke she probably took 60 pics of us dancing and several videos...and I'm so glad cause theyre beyond funny! Anyways, so this night I took my effed up passport with me (water damage from Fraser Island) and my Uni ID and ISIC card ID just in case they thought my passport was too ridiculous...I literally had it attached to me hand the ENTIRE night...its in every photo with me! So I have absolutely NO idea how I couldn't find it the next morning...either way, I was pretty upset for awhile, but oh well...I'm in Australia, life goes on...

Before I finish talking about Spring Break 09 what whattttt...I'll tell you about the number 1 best night.  It was on PowerPlay the first night...we anchored right off another set of islands...it was perfectly clear skies, the perfect weather...we had the best meal and me and stac were just chillin on the skippers deck looking at the stars for hours and out of nowhere 2 dolphins just show up next to our boat, and when I say next to our boat I mean we could reach down and touch them...they were hunting loads of fish by our boat...you would see them just take off through the water and do crazy spins, I've never seen anything like it and I think thats saying a lot being that I live in FL and we see dolphins pretty often...I've never experienced anything like it...they hung around our boat for literally hours, so cool! Even the crew said they'd never seen anything like that while out on the boats.  Its just crazy how pretty much everything that could have gone wrong with me did go wrong and yet it didn't come close to ruining the trip...it still ended up being the best 10 days of my life!! I wish you all could have been there with me cause there are just no words...