Waza the skipper underway We began our Whitsunday Pirate Sailing Adventure in the afternoon and boarded the Samurai with fifteen other young travelers and three crew. Meals were provided for our trip, however drinks were BYO and each passenger (including ourselves) hopped on with at least one sack of Goon. * Once on board we wrote our names on one foot and our country on the other to facilitate a meet and greet with backpackers from Canada, Ireland, Germany, and Sweden. Corey was very excited to meet the two Irish girls… The first night we anchored under the stars in a small inlet and much debauchery ensued (which of course was immediately regretted by all come morning, as the ship tossed and turned underway and the cabins below deck smelled faintly of diesel fuel…). This included a dance party to “All the Single Ladies” featuring the 6 girls on board and Corey, as well as a few games of Racehorse over which Devin and the Skipper bonded and entertained the rest of the international gang. Pirate Jambros On our first full day, our first stop was Whitehaven Beach, a pretty famous location and, as the name might suggest, was a large stretch of white, powdery sand in the middle of turquoise waters and lush green islands. Our group climbed barefoot to the top of the small “mountain” overlooking the beach and used the opportunity to take some tourist photos. Down on the beach, our skipper guided us out into the shallows where we suddenly found ourselves walking among leopard stingrays and small lemon sharks (don’t worry parentals, no teeth!). Devin actually managed to step on one of the rays after wandering a bit too close to the dark patches of sand, and jumped impressively high out of the water. Good on ya Dev J Ben in his Stinger Suit Night Masters The ship pressed on after that and moved to our final destination in Blue Pearl Bay, a cove off the most northeasterly island in the Whitsundays. Ben and the Jambros bravely ventured out for a night snorkel, doubling and tripling up on cold, clammy wetsuits for the excursion. They were each given a small torch (flashlight) for shining on fish and coral. Bioluminescent sea life was plentiful and the guys duck dove deeper into the water to view lobsters and other crustaceans under the rocks. Ben found it extremely creepy to only see a small disk of ocean floor at a time, but snorkeling under the stars was absolutely amazing. Ben shows off his frogman skills The next morning (our final day) the guys opted in for a last dive and I snorkeled around this new reef. This reef was even better than the first: the water less murky, a larger span of reef, bigger fish and larger schools, more varieties of fish, and just before I headed back to the boat, I spotted a brown sea turtle just two feet below me lazily snacking on the coral! Hooray for sea turtles! *In case we haven’t yet explained the phenomenon that is Goon, imagine a boxed wine akin to Franzia. Now imagine it 5x worse and note that on the ingredients listing, it says it contains traces of fish, dairy, and nuts. WTF? It's really goon that deserves a slapping, not Franzia. It’s the cheapest alcohol you can find in Australia, averaging $12 per box/bag. It does the trick but gives you a wicked morning after. What I don’t understand is why this is always the most available and affordable go-to alcoholic beverage when Australia is packed full of wineries with REAL wine?
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Absolutely Exhausted.
After a miserable, sleepless, shotgun start to make a 6 am flight on the "cheap as" (as the Aussies would say) Tiger Airways (the Easy Jet of Oz), we made it to Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast only to find that the Greyhound bus we had tickets for to go to Noosa did not have any pickup station even remotely close to the airport where we landed. Luckily, the bus wasn't scheduled for another 3 hours, so we hopped in a cab to go into town. The cab driver, in both voice and appearance, was a perfect likeness of Richard Attenborough/John Hammond in Jurassic Park. Driving through the lush rainforest/tropical landscape we very well could've been on a dinosaur-filled island. Which brings up a good fun fact -- apparently there used to be a species of carnivorous kangaroo in Australia. Essentially a furry velociraptor, though probably way too dumb to open doors. Anyway, Mr. Hammond dropped us right by a shopping complex called Sunshine Plaza, a kind of indoor/outdoor mall split in half by a river traversed by footbridges. We noticed that people were using grocery store shopping carts all over this mall, so we grabbed one and loaded all of our bags in and wandered the shops. Needless to say, we looked a little bit like the Clampetts, or maybe gore-tex gypsies, given our dual instrument cases and haggard appearance. A man with his wife and baby asked us if we on the Amazing Race TV show. We found out that a local bus would take us straight from the shopping center up to Noosa where we were meeting Emily for only $7, so we scrapped our Greyhound option for the cheaper, much faster route. |
Marielle & BenWe're two people in the midst of severe quarter-life crises who decided to leave good jobs in a bad economy to travel to the other side of the world because, well, why not? Archives
April 2011
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