Sailing the Whitsundays (day 1)

Considering we arrived in the Whitsundays with Carly nervous about her skin in the beating sun the early weather has been anything but! It's still nice and warm but it rained for most of the night. With a thin corrugated roof above our heads it made quite a racket and neither of us had a great nights sleep. That and Larry the lizard was watching from the wall as we fell asleep!

We managed to avoid most of the morning showers as we dropped off our bags and picked up some biscuits and drinks for the boat. We decided to head to our meet point early for coffee and brunch. Deliciously cooked Avocados on sourdough with bacon, roast toms and perfectly poached eggs!




The sun by now was coming out and we met our crew and fellow passengers around lunch time. Skipping showers we headed down to our boat, and home for the next few days, Prima. Our skipper is called Mark and is an Australian originally from the South of the Country. Our "hosty" and chef for the next few days is called Lisa.

The boat is the largest I've ever sailed on and the first time Carly's sailed! It's incredibly similar to the boats I've sailed on with work but more double cabins and a lot of space below deck including a fully equipped kitchen. After a welcome and brief safety talk we headed off the mainline and over to our first mooring spot.

With wind speeds up to 25 knots we only got the head sail out on our trip over but kept good speed with the high winds. The high winds also meant that the weather changed every few minutes from sun to overcast with intermittent showers. We arrived just over an hour later at our first mooring point for our snorkeling at cavers cove.

I've never snorkeled before, not a bad place to start in the world famous great barrier reef. It took a while to get used to forming a seal with the goggles and breathing through the tube but once I did it was breathtaking! The coral was absolutely beautiful and we were totally surrounded by tropical fish of all shapes and sizes in vibrant colours.

Carly and I spent our time in the water together, enjoying the breathtaking scenery under the water. Definitely another bucket list moment! Although the weather wasn't great all afternoon the snorkelling visibility was still amazing!

Returning to the boat Lisa had cooked up some lovely homemade nachos for us. We then took a short trip around the headland to out mooring location for the night. I've always previously moored in a harbour so it'll be interesting to see how much sleep we get with a significant level of bobbing!

Dinner was again lovely and we spent a lovely evening with our fellow guests and crew chatting about travels and sailing around this area of coastline. 7am brekkie tomorrow and a packed day ahead so hoping we can get to sleep ok on the rocking boat!