Wednesday - On a Boat!

So Brekky is called at 7am so we all got up nice and early to fight for some food. We then headed out to Whitehaven Beach – where we did a bush walk and spent an hour or 2 at the beach. Whitehaven beach is made up of 99.9% silica sand, and is the purest white you’ll ever see! It’s gorgeous – and seriously does look like the pictures… We also managed to spot two little orange reef sharks.

Fearsome 5!

Overlooking Whitehaven Beach!

I got my toes in the water - in Whitehaven Beach!

I highly recommend Checking out facebook because it's really difficult to post all of my pictures on this - so there are more amazing pictures on facebook!

 We then headed back to the boat for some awesome sausage and salad lunch which was amazing. After lunch it was time to set the sails and get going. I even got to pull one of the sails! I got to pull the “Inner Jib” or something like that – I thought he said Nib Nib Jib (sometimes their accents are still hard to understand) anyway they all laughed at me when they asked me to repeat it. Anyway I managed to pull it up and I didn’t get pulled in and I didn’t screw up – so yay me!

Tommy giving me directions on how to pull up the sail

OH GOD...

YAY! my sail - the inner jib!

 So for the rest of the afternoon we sailed away reading and relaxing – apparently the crew and some sailors spotted some dolphins in the distance – I unfortunately missed them - still cool though! The rest of the afternoon on Wednesday was spent sailing – we didn’t get where we wanted to go fast enough so there was no time for snorkelling – which we were supposed to do – but that’s ok because sailing on a sail ship (over 100 years old) is still pretty cool. We did manage to get enough time before dinner to do some Tarzan jumps off the rope. The first night on the boat (Tuesday) everyone was still kind of awkward with each other getting to know everyone – well as soon as the rope was pulled out – (mostly) everyone became close – and we jelled as a group. There were 32 passengers and 5 crew members + 1 volunteer – so there were quite a few of us! There were 3 others from Canada, 8 from England, 4 Aussie’s, 1 crazy Scotsmen, and the rest were from different parts of Europe. The crew was made up of 4 Aussie’s and 1 Kiwi, and the volunteer was from the States. Anyway back to the Tarzan Rope – we got to jump off of the boat by a rope into the water, however we did have to wear our “Stinger Suits” (aka wet suits) because it still is jelly fish season – and we wouldn’t want to get stung and air lifted to the hospital now would we? So we were all pretty attractive in our wet suits – I’m pretty sure there are pictures to prove it!

Heave Hoe!

Wet suits = soo sexy!

This is how the professionals do it!

Like walking through air

This is how I do it

Holding on for dear life - right before I face planted in the water... haha - not so grateful

Anyway while we were jumping the sun was setting on the other side of the boat – and in between jumps I did manage to snap a few amazing pictures. This really is an amazing country (well from what I’ve seen so far anyway).

 So after jumping it was time for dinner – which was roasted chicken, vegetables with salads. I can honestly say we haven’t gone hungry on this boat! Before dinner we were told that there was going to be a talent show amongst the cabins. So we decided to join forces with the other Canadians and do a human pyramid and the top 2 people were going to tell pirate jokes. Anyway after dinner we had some time to “rehearse”, however we heard this noise from the port (left) side of the boat. We all went over to check it out – sure enough we saw two dolphins jumping in and out of the water! They stayed for a while too – the one even swam right beside the boat and put on a little show for us! It was sooo cool – the Captain had told us previously that they are actually pretty shy animals and you don’t ten to see them out in the water – they usually like to stay away – so I was pumped to see them come back – and they were sooo close!! We then saw a pod (not sure if that’s the right word for the little guys) of squid, and someone claimed they saw a shark – but I’m not sure I believe that one! Oh and they were in the EXACT same spot we had been Tarzan roping into! SO COOL!

Anyway so now it was time for the talent show – however some people decided that they didn’t want to do the talent show – so we did trivia instead. We came in second place strictly for our humour. For example – the one question was “at what time did the sun set at today?” our answer was “between nachos and dinner” (because we had nachos for afternoon tea). Another question was ‘what is the name of the white thing at the front of the boat” Our answer was ‘the dolphin detector’ – haha… We had no idea what the answers were so we might as well be creative!

Anyway that pretty much sums up Wednesday – my favourite part of the day was by far the dolphins!!