Yes that's right, where normally boats have beautiful girls names conjuring images of sailing through calm crystal clear waters, we were changed from 'The Matador' which sounds quite exciting - speed and sophistication coming to mind to Spank Me. Not quite the same connotations there.
Spank Me did somehow suit the boat as it was far from luxury with its tiny leaking beds and very strange smelling below deck toilets. I felt like I'd stepped back several years and was aboard a merchant sailors ship or something. I think this was particularly helped by the gale force winds and rain that we ended up having on our first day. Lots of boats going out on the same day as ours had been cancelled so we boarded not too optimistic about the beautiful weather that we had been hoping for on the Whitsunday Islands. Instead we thought it was more likely that we would be experiencing the Wetsunday Islands as lots of backpackers have affectionately named this set of islands by the Great Barrier Reef in North East Aus.
However, after a rocky nights sleep we woke to glorious sunshine, which made shots like these possible...
Yep, I reckon we probably jumped for that photo about 15 - 20 times and its still not great. But jumping on white sand in wet suits apparently is how pretty much every backpacker on that route rolls judging by the many photo shoots that took place on White Haven Beach, some guides even take props... plastic ducks, beach balls, beer cans, you get the picture.
You may recognise those two ladies in the photos too from the Fraser blog... we managed to meet up with Caroline and Sarah again having already been on Fraser with them. Most people take the same route up the coast, so on one stretch of beach we were reunited with 3 different sets of people that we had met on our way.
We got to open the boat up to full sail and bounce along the waves through the islands before stopping off at various snorkeling points, donning our highly attractive 'stinger suits' apparently its high season for these little treasures about now so we had to rock the not so Baywatch look before going in the water at all.
The fish that we saw were beautiful and we were even lucky enough to see a turtle popping up to take a look before diving back down and hiding away from us as we all launched off the side of the boat to chase it.
As the sun came down and the goon came out everyone was in high spirits... especially when Steph our hostie performed an amazing feet... Roast dinner on a boat, it was impressive! No idea how she did it, but it was the first roast I have had in a very very long time and it was preeettty good.
So that was our taste of boat life. I was pretty pleased to be back on dry land again, even if it was to shower outside by the public pools as we were hopping back on the Greyhound that night. We thought our fellow bus riders would probably appreciate O' du Chlorine rather than O' du Salt Water.
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