Sailing the Whitsundays (part 2)

On the second day everyone woke up between 6 and 7 and breakfast was served (mainly bread with a selection of toppings, cereal and milk, and a fruit salad). We once again had beautiful clear weather (although it could have been a bit warmer) and started making our way to Esk Island. Apparently not many people go ashore at Esk Island because it's also known as Snake Island and is said to have the largest number of deadly snakes per square meter in Australia. That said, Lockey assured us that he had never seen any snakes over the last few years of going there, but on the flip side he also hadn't seen any birds. At around 8 or 9 we made our way to the beach. Rather than sand the beach was made up of pieces of dead coral. Not far up from the beach there were some rocks formations that showed where the water level had been years and years ago. We climbed up the rocks a ways to get some pictures but didn't venture too far into the bush. Most of us just sat around and chatted while one or two people snorkeled.

After about an hour on Esk Island we got back on the boat and headed for the Coral Gardens. I don't know if that's the official name of this area or just a name given by the crew of our boat but it was by far the best coral we saw on the trip. There didn't seem to be as many fish as there were at Dunbell Island but there was tons of bright coral to look at. Katie and I snorkeled for 20 or 30 minutes and then signaled for a pick up (fist in the air). Once back on the boat we dried off and soaked up the sun before lunch. All the meals on the boat were great and lunch on the second day consisted of a really nice pasta bake (no meat), sliced deli meats, bread and salad.

After lunch we started back to Airlie Beach and did a little unpowered sailing along the way (pretty much all of the trip we had been sailing with only the motor or both the motor and the sails).

It was both Katie and my's first time spending the night on a sailboat and it was a blast. The trip was made better by great company and a great crew.