Getting our sea-legs on, eh.

Our first stop in the 10-day adventure was Nara inlet. It was a fairly protected narrow bay, which was good for us Canadian sailors getting our sea-legs on. 

The highlights of Nara Inlet was that it was our first night in the Whitsundays AND unending view of the southern stars and Milky Way. We spent a few hours on the deck of the cat, amazed at the new constellations to our virgin Canadian eyes.

As we left Nara and headed to Butterfly Bay, we lowered the fishing line to see what we could find and we caught this in about 15 minutes. 

look at those teeth!

The journey to Butterfly bay was through a narrow passage where we weren’t allowed to use the sails, so we motored our way there and moored in a lovely spot that was also occupied by an angelfish that was about 18” in diameter.

It was pretty frickin’ hot out and we needed to cool off, so we donned our stinger suits   that we wear Stinger suits to prevent being stung by jellyfish (box & other kinds of stinging fishes). However, at some point in time over a 24 hour period ALL of us got stung by something while wearing and not wearing our suits.

and went for a plunge. It is recommended by everyone including Simon our sailing trainer,
Day three we thought it would be best to utilize our new skills of sailing and actually put up a sail or two, so we headed out to sea!

We pitstopped for a snorkel swim at Langford island, which came highly recommended as the best snorkel spot on the Whitsundays. This was undoubtedly some of the best snorkeling all of us have seen. There were amazing blue, purples, pinks, greens, yellows, oranges and every color in between of coral and fishes.

Here is a coupla cool shots 

The next day was a bit rainy but decided to hit the snorkel spot again and then motor to the southern part of the Whitsundays to Cid Harbour.  It was pouring rain and so alternate plans included a wet hike.

This was the half-way point to Hamilton Island, where we were going to fill up on water, petrol and sundries. This was probably where the first episode of Robin Leaches “lifestyle of the rich and famous” was filmed. It was $18/kg for mushrooms, all the staff were in uniforms, golf carts were used to get around, there were 10 million dollar yachts in the harbour and homes on the hill.

Good thing we had a sailboat, otherwise this would have been the price of our fuel if we had a luxury yacht! 

Luxury yacht boat gas on left, our sail boat gas on right!

From Hamilton island, we had a long journey to get to the next overnight bay, either Chalkies or Windy Bay. Let me just say the journey was epic: Stampede style buckin’ bronco on a sailboat! Brent and Wanda were on the mat and were soaked, Todd then went up front to the “cowboy seat” and had a helluva ride and Jill sat in the back with her sea bands, ginger pills and peuk bucket beneath her.

As I said, it was epic. (sorry no pics of the waves, we were hanging on for our lives)

Stay tuned for Whitsundays part 2.