Sailing the Whitsundays

After a relaxing two days in Hervey Bay, recovering from Fraser Island merriment, we headed to Airlie Beach to hit the waves of the Whitsundays.

This is where the Great Barrier Reef starts, although noone can completely agree on this - some say the Great Barrier Reef is bigger than the whole of the United Kingdom. It consists of some 3,000 separate reefs, over 600 islands, at least 1,500 species of fish and 400 types of coral (and counting).

Cairns, and further north in Port Douglas, are the best launch pads to see the Great Barrier. And, due to destruction, pollution, global warming and excessive tourism, these days you have to spend a lot more money to see the part of the reef that can still claim to be one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World.

On this trip, we decided time and temperature was against us heading further north and we liked the idea of having a reason to come back. Here's hoping the best parts of the reef will still be in all their Wonder-ful glory.

The Whitsundays not only offer a beautiful sailing experience through islands frosted with white sand and tropical ocean, they're also a backdoor to the Great Barrier to give us a salty taste of Australia's most famous tourist attraction.

Our catermarang was quite luxurious by backpacker standards. We lazed on deck as we sailed through the islands, the sun was bouncing off the water. We made several stop offs for swimming and snorkelling, seeing lots of fish around the coral. It has to be said, while many of our group were really impressed with what they saw, for us it was sad to see the dead coral from too many boats and tourists.

It was also peak jellyfish season, so we had to put on stinger suits (sexy wet suits) to protect ourselves.

We had swam in the sea all around Australia and there's always the chance you can get stung, and not just by any ordinary jelly fish. Blue bottles (the Portuguese man-of-war) and the box jellyfish sting can be deadly (to name just two), and the Whitsundays also had some they call 'Snotties' which, yes, could be mistaken for a giant's bogey underwater. But here they were rife and we were all more than happy to wear the suit - plus it saved us wearing suncream which harms the coral and fish.

Hungry from all the swimming, we ate like kings, with three cake stops a day, sunset snacks and huge buffets. That night, after a beautiful dinner, we got to gasp at the spellbinding sight of the Milky Way on deck as we let the tiredness of a day at sea soak into our muscles. Med and I headed for an early night as we were scuba diving the next day.

We were sharing a cabin with six other people, but had a private 'pod' that you could just about sit up in. I slept like a baby (although not like me as a baby, I was nightmare, just ask my mum).

We were up at 6am to beat the other boats to Whitehaven beach. The beach is a wide arc with an inlet on one end, with sand so white your eyes wince and squint in the glare. It's 99.9% silica and they say some of it was used to make the lens on NASA's Hubble telescope (although we're sure we've heard this before, elsewhere). The sea is also an astounding spectrum of turquoise, and in the shallows we watched rays and baby lemon sharks play.

Back on the boat, Med and I headed out on a dive with three others and swam around the vibrant coral and fish. The highlights were lion fish and a lizard fish - sadly no turtles or sharks. The visability was deteriorating by the afternoon and so we didn't do any more dives, including what would have been my first night dive.

Still, we snorkelled and relaxed with new friends in the sunshine, enjoying our slice of luxury at sea.