Guro and Caroline Blog

Whitsundays, diving the s.s. yongala and to cairns...

So the Wetsundays! Seems Queenslands wet season has stayed late this year. Yipppeedoday. Also we've been privelidged to be here for the coldest day in 50 years at 14 degress below seasonal avg. (ok it was only 12 degrees C but it felt very cold and we're in australia, will never be home boasting a tan at this rate!) We set sail last Tuesday (19/06/07) on the Condor - we had booked on a different boat but 5 people is apparently not enough to sail an 80 ft yacth. They had had a lot of cancellations due to the weather so they squeezed us onto the Condor, a very similar trip. 2 nights onboard, chance to do a bit of real sailing and the usual route - the molle island group, whitehaven beach, a resort for a hot tub then home day 3. The hot tub wasn't part of the plan but was a great idea. Given the rain it was a bit of a pick me up, hot tub and goon :) The group of 28 was too many to really get to know all but became friends with an irish couple JJ and bernie, drank goon at 9am with V and generally got on with everyone. When the boat was actually sailing it was amazing. we did some pulling ropes and turning of handles and suddenly the wind would take the boat and we'd be pleased we tied our bags onto our beds down stairs. The Condor has previously won every (some sort of race) twice - the only yacth to do so!It was a great trip but can't help think how amazing it would've been with some sunshine. All the photos are of us in huge yellow raincoats which just isn't cool. The snorkelling was great, and a couple of huge (like really really big) sea turtles came really close to the boat - was very tempted to lash one to each foot and go for a ride johnny depp stylee but apparently this is frowned upon and not part of the tour :(

We got back to Airlie Beach but set off straight away. Guro had got stuck on the idea of a dive on some wreck a couple of hours north and booked it for the next day. I was just kinda going along with it, knew nothing about it but that turned out to be definately the number one highlight of the east coast for me. The S.S. Yongala sank in with the loss of all aboard - a few are still in her hull! Now she forms a great reef when all around is sand - truely an oasis for all kinds of sealife.
The dive boat was small, the trip out rough - like we got a free ride in a jet boat with the dive. The first dive was only marred by a foggy mask for me, guro came up raving about everything and i nearly told her where to go when i said i could see hardly anything. But a new mask and the best experience you can have diving. There's an amazing wreck, still clearly definable but your attention is drawn away by the fish. We saw many different rays, huge marble rays to shovel nosed rays that look like sharks. a small shark was hanging out under the bow. we saw huge groupers all around, wrasses, and small fish in abundence. A huge loggerhead was quite up for interacting with you - although i can't aggree with the people that touched him. There was a small green turtle, olive sea snakes, a moray eel... and we found nemo :) Unforgetable.

We stayed an extra night at the dive resort, it was so cold we spent the evening watching dvds snuggled under duvets!

Next day we left going north, not sure where we were heading really until we got there! somewhere near Cairns was the plan :)



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posted by Caroline @ 08:05