Monday - We pulled ourselves together with a shower and went
to park up the Cyber Punk for a night, before wandering down to the marina with
our small rucksacks and a box of red wine… all the essentials for a couple of
days on the ocean!
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| Me modelling my stinger suit |
There were people all over the marina meeting up with
boats. Gradually, most of the groups
disappeared and we were left wondering if we’d missed the boat, literally. But no, it was just that our vessel was
running a little late and we started finding others waiting for the same
boat. A girl turned up to check us in
and hand us each a not-very-flattering ‘stinger-suit’ which we would have to
wear any time we wanted to venture into the water. Basically, a full length body suit covering
from your neck down to the tips of your toes which clung on to all of your
contours!
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| All aboard.... the Freight train! And what a lovely day for it |
We were then invited onto our vessel, Freight Train, to
meet Captain Kev and his two deck-hands/skivvies – Alex from the UK and Carolyn
from Germany. Straight away it was clear
– Kev was an old-school Australian red-blooded male. He pretty much fitted all of the stereotypes
you could think of. This was funny at
first so we threw ourselves into it and hoped for a good time. We were taken through the rules and
regulations for our time on the boat before we set off towards the Whitsunday
Islands.
The best thing about the whole trip was the variety of
nationalities and personalities on board.
There were nineteen of us, consisting of some Aussies, a smattering of other
Brits, Scandinavians, Swiss, and one Taiwanese girl. Whilst under sail (throwing a technical term
in there for you) our job was to stay out of the way, so this was the perfect
opportunity to mingle with everyone on the boat. For us, it was the first time in a long time
that we had a captive audience of people that we could talk to, instead of just
each other, so we went to town on it! It
usually starts as a routine traveller conversation. All the classics – how long
have you been away? Are you heading north or south up the east coast? Where to
next? But it’s also very handy for
picking up tips for each other’s ongoing travels.
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| What's left of the resort on Hook island.... sadly no longer receiving visitors |
Within an hour or two we had reached Hook Island, the
destination for our first snorkelling trip.
I disclosed to Captain Kev that it was also the scene of one of my
biggest regrets in my life to date - the wallet incident of 1997. Back then,
there was a lively bar on the island and the boat I was on moored up for the
night and took us to the bar on a RIB to enjoy a few beverages.
When I was younger I held the strong belief
that handbags were completely redundant and only used by posers. Therefore, I carried my wallet either in my
hands or, when my hands were required for something else, I put it in my
mouth! This habit had disastrous
consequences that fateful night on Hook Island when a combination of alcohol
and clumsiness led me to let out a little squeal when trying to get back
onboard from the RIB. My wallet escaped
from my open mouth, unsurprisingly, and I grabbed hopelessly into the dark
water beneath me as I watched it sink rapidly into the deep. The crew flatly refused to enter the
apparently shark-infested water to rescue it for me. That was it.
All my cash, my credit cards, driving license, Australian bank card,
gone. I recall the phone call home to my
Mum was not one of my proudest moments.
She was understandably annoyed and exasperated with me and with the
amount of work it would now cause her to rescue me financially from the other
side of the world! Anyway, back to 2018,
we donned our stinger suits and went for a snorkel. We must have started in the
wrong location as initially the underwater landscape was barren. Very disappointing. But then we moved along and coloured coral
and fish started to appear.
Simon
was a hero, guiding April the Taiwanese girl, because she was not a very
confident swimmer at all, so the thought of floating around in the open ocean,
even with a floatation noodle, was daunting for her. There was some really
pretty life to see…. But sadly, NO WALLET FOUND!
Back on board we were treated to a very tasty lunch of
chicken and potato salad. I think we
will be well fed here.
We moved on to Border Island. The brilliant blue sky that greeted the day
had been taken over by dark grey clouds and a breeze was getting up. We had another snorkel in a bay here and we
managed to see some quite large fish at a cleaning station.
When we got back on board Captain Kev told us
that he had decided we’d stay the night here due to the weather
conditions. We were tucked nicely
between two headlands and he hoped that the rain would stick to the mountains
and leave us sheltered in the bay. Now we had done all of our snorkelling for
the day, we were given permission to start drinking! Kev was responsible and stayed off the juice
in case we needed to move the boat for any reason. However, now we were stopped for the night it
rapidly became the ‘Kev show’ as he started telling tales of his and other boat
captains’ exploits and adventures on the sea.
Some of it was interesting at first but then it became tiring and I was
getting through the boxed red wine at speed whilst trying to remain focussed on
the stories!
Some fantastic
thunderstorms began to light up the sky around us as we sat and chatted. I knew we had an early wake-up call in the
morning so didn’t stay up too long.
Simon and I had secured a ‘double’ bunk in the couples’ room in the
bow. It was cosy, once I was in bed
there was no getting out again if Simon was there as there was no space
to sit up. I remember listening to the
thunder rumbling about and Simon joining me at some stage. I didn’t get much sleep, especially when it
started to rain during the night… right on to Simon’s face, before Kev
magically appeared to bang the hatch closed over our heads!
Tuesday – It wasn’t raining when we woke this morning but it
was very overcast. The plan today was to
head to Whitehaven beach, where we had time to walk up to a view point and also
go for a paddle or a swim if we wished.
This beach is famous for its white sands set against turquoise
blue waters, but today the conditions just weren’t right to get these
colours. What made up for this was the
number of lemon sharks to be found in the shallows:
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| Us posing on Whitehaven beach |
Back on Freight Train we went to another snorkelling point,
but it was very disappointing. The tide
was too high and the visibility poor, so we were just gazing into murky water just
trying to find the coral let alone anything living on it. Sadly, it was then time to head back to
Airlie Beach. A fair wind had picked up
which gave us an opportunity to sail back rather than just being on the
motor. I say ‘us’ because Kev gave Simon
the responsibility of steering us whilst we were travelling at increasingly
scary angles! One of the other passengers and I were clinging on for dear life
to stop ourselves sliding from one side of the boat to the other. I had mixed emotions on arrival back at the
marina – sad that the trip was over but also a sense of relief that I wouldn’t
have to listen to any more of Kev’s war stories and conquests! We said our thanks and farewells whilst also
making plans for a big night out that night.
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| Farewell to the Freight Train |
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| Our Freight Train friends with our jugs of complimentary beer |
One of the bars in town welcomed all the passengers from the
different cruise boats that had returned that day. We had a table set out for
Freight Train passengers, cheap food and had jugs of free beers delivered to us. Most of our crew turned up, at least for some of the evening and Alex
and Carolyn joined us whilst Kev left us to it.
A group of us didn’t want the night to end after the first bar closed so
we even went on to a club where we had a great laugh with an inflatable crystal
dome and some cushions! I guess you had
to be there…. Tonight, we were the drunken loud people walking through our
campsite!
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