Sailing the Whitsundays

Dedicated to Ashleigh – for your future journey

 6 months on the road

We’ve been 6 months on the road. Can you believe it? It’s gone so fast but we’ve done so much, and it seems like we chose the perfect timing for this epic adventure feeling bloody lucky we missed that persistent Perth rain, dodging lockdowns and now borders opening up for the road ahead. My cup spilleth over, my heart is overflowing, I feel so joyous, so relaxed, so grateful.

 Blogging again

Caravan life is now just normal life. That initial excitement that inspired me to holiday blog was full of anticipation of the unknown and undiscovered (by us, thankful someone else found them and made them known to be worth seeing). People always asks for the the low-down on where to go that is non-touristy - but there's a reason why they are touristy - they are worth seeing! We've been too busy adventurising than diarising. But now, I’m blogging again… why am I re-inspired? We’ve gone off-road, in the literal sense, and hit the seas. We’ve hired a catamaran for a week to sail the Whitsundays. I always look forward to the next place, but this level of elation is next level. I am buzzing.

A life of (mostly) luxury

Here's what it's like living a life of travels. One minute I'm apologising profusely to the lady giving my feet a pedicure for my intensely black feet... Side note... did you ever notice, like your finger prints, there are prints on your feet? Well you wouldn't know it after a month of rugged camping in Cape York with every crevice embedded with dirt. Then, conversely, I'm having cocktails on a yacht moored up at the paradise island resort of Julia Roberts and George Clooney's latest film.

Picture this, we’re on said paradise island (actual name: Long Island), surrounded by palm trees, bungalows with hammocks, drinking cocktails by an exclusive and exquisite pool, clear calm seas and yachts dotting the landscape. Not even a dozen people on the island, most of the time never seen, and a private chef who asks the kids, ‘Sir, what would you like to eat today?’ Is this how the other half (quarter?) live? Not ordering off a menu, whipping up whatever you want? It’s a first for me and, Rio, at 6, has already had a taste of it. Two days after we left, the island closed for 8 weeks to house Julia and George. I was tempted to throw up my hammock hidden within the island rainforest and pop out for a cameo, but life sails on.

Johnny already had his skippers ticket from a while back when we babysat our friends boat, but we never used it, so with no actual experience, and choosing friends with exactly half as much as experience as us to take this adventure with, we got shown some maps, learnt a bunch of new terminology and set off. I, am proud to say, that I was ahead of the game: I already knew 'Portside' because someone once told me the easy to remember saying, 'No port left'.

It was absolute luxury sailing a catamaran on the perfect, calm, turquoise seas and dropping into fancy islands. It was everything my excitement desired. We loved the famous Hamilton Island and Whitehaven Beach. We nearly ended up staying there as our dinghy (the marine terminology is 'tender') had a bit of an issue. Whilst we left the lads to work on that, we walked the white sands and eventually sent in reinforcements - a tour boat kindly pulled up his anchor and went to sort the lads out. It turned out that they'd accidently kicked the fuel hose loose. We moored up on shores of remote, little islands to collect shells and snorkel the reef, saw amazing different types of coral, colourful fish and another one for my best moments yet - turtles mating! Explained that one to the kids.

Johnny and Massimo got to fish and trolled the waters. I was insisting it was 'trawled'. Google wasn't my friend that day proving me wrong, that's a different type of boat/fishing thing. It's no fun when I lose a grammar argument but in turn they lost a few lines from some big bites, we also:

·       Lost the esky bung within minutes of leaving the marina. Retrieved with the fishing net.

·       Lost John’s Akubra overboard. Jumped in to get it.

·       Lost Rio’s Akubra overboard. Not retrievable.

·       Lost a baseball cap overboard. Jumped in to get it.

·       Lost a frisby playing in the shallows of Whitehaven beach.

·      Got the fishing line caught around the propeller. Many attempts later, got it untangled.

We’re pretty good sailing rookies in the scheme of things learning in a matter of hours how to drive, navigate, moor and anchor a catamaran.  

The start and the end of the week were bliss. The middle, we were at the mercy of the weather. The going got rough and it rained but we didn’t really attempt the rough seas, rather we went to where we’d be sheltered and safe as novices of the seas. It’s like staying in. But you sway. In the most part we could get used to this, but, one week is all we could afford (plus we split it with our now pro sailing friends) Let it go down as yet another experience of a lifetime.