Wandering the Whitsundays

One of our goals when we got REAO and came to Australia was to explore the Whitsunday Islands and we have finally been able to tick that goal off our list.  The main town is Airlie Beach which we were able to anchor off amongst the mooring fields. All we had to pay was a little fee to the local sailing club and that enabled us to tie Kermie up at their dinghy wharf, use their showers, bar and wifi. Airlie is a little town set up to cater for backpackers and those people wanting to go out and explore any of the 74 islands that make up the Whitsundays group.  You are not able to swim in the beaches off Airlie so the council built a massive lagoon area which is free to swim in and where we went most days to hop in and splash about. 

After spending a couple of days in Airlie and restocking groceries we were ready to head out and start exploring.  All islands within the Whitsundays are really close to each other which was lucky on those days when the wind wasn’t with us and we ended up motor sailing to the next island. During our time there we visited the main islands (staying clear of the big resorts) and many anchorages.  We didn’t know it was currently the wet season meaning we had a bit of rain during our time which we didn’t really mind as it did cool things down. 

A couple of years back a cyclone had gone through the islands causing quite a bit of devastation, closing down a couple of resorts and breaking up the majority of the sea coral so what had been known as an amazing snorkel/dive place is no longer.  Not that we spent much time in the water as it was also stinger season (box and irukandji jellies – both very dangerous).  I had bought myself a stinger suit (think onsie) and Craig had a light wetsuit top.  Over the few weeks we were there we both got a couple of stings but nothing major.  There was also quite a few places where shark attacks had previously happened which meant both of us ended up being quite nervous going in any deeper water though would happily sit in the shallows for a little bit of time.

On the brighter side for the majority of anchorages we had the bays to ourselves meaning we could explore the beaches, do the walks and just relax with no one else around.  We found some amazing shells, saw some amazing sunrises and sunsets as well as some very cool animal life.  We got visited on the boat by a couple of cockatoos at Nara Inlet, which is where we also saw thousands of non stinger jellyfish in the water.  Had some cool squid like creatures and fish visit the back of the boat when we were off Langford Island. Saw heaps of butterflies on a beach on Hook Island and just some very gorgeous scenery.

So although we were disappointed on the snorkelling side of things we saw some amazing sights above the water line and even though we had a lovely time we definitely won’t be rushing back to the Whitsundays.  We are now looking ahead to when we can sail away from Australia back into waters where there are no stingers or sharks and we can jump off the boat and spend hours in clear water exploring.

For now we are slowly sailing south heading towards Bundaberg which is our jumping off place to New Caledonia.  We are taking our time because the winds are not very favourable and are mainly blowing from the direction we are wanting to go which means very slow sailing for us.  However that is okay as we can not leave until the end of April which is (hopefully) the end of cyclone season.

If you are keen to see more pictures/videos of our travels we have now set up a youtube channel “swashbuckling_soulmates” please feel free to subscribe.