It took some hasty arrangements, and early morning bus and a slap on the wrist for not reading the terms and conditions, but we eventually made it to Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, to board the Tall ship, Solway Lass, for a 3 day cruise around the islands.
Solway Lass has a long and varied history including stints in Germany, Scotland (where she was named) and she even ran aground in Sandymount during a snowstorm – who would have guessed!
We departed shortly after dark and motored to our first anchor point were we stayed over night before heading on early the next morning to Whitsunday Island, the largest of the group, and Whitehaven Beach. This incredible beach is exactly as you would imagine the perfect white sand, turquoise water strand. It is regularly voted into the Top 10 beaches in the world and its not hard to see why. The sand is 99% silica sand, and is so fine and smooth it actually squeaks when you walk on it. Apparently the sand was used by NASA in building parts for the Hubble telescope. Now, however, it is protected, so no filling a little bottle before you leave.
Stinger (jellyfish) season is just its end, so we had to cover up in our stinger suits before going swimming, but it was about the most idyllic morning I’ve had. White sand, crystal clear (warm!) water, float in the sea on a more or less deserted beach – Australia just gets better. Once we left the beach, we headed on to our next destination Hook Island. The wind was pretty slack, but we still managed to sail for a short distance, although we weren’t far off moving backwards on the tide!
Snorkelling was on the agenda the next day and our first stop was at Maureen’s Cove (there must be some Irish connection there!) a coral beach (ouch) along a section of reef. It was a little windy unfortunately, so the visibility wasn’t great, but we managed to snorkel for a short while. For the uneducated snorkeler, it was a little less impressive than the snorkelling in Cairns, although some of the group managed to spot some turtles, and one poor girl had a close encounter with a stinger! (Stinger suits were worth it after all).
Arriving back at the boat, the fun really kicked in as the rope swing came out! We took turns jumping from the side of the boat, swinging out over the ocean before dropping in various spectacular if inelegant ways into the deep blue! Jets of saltwater up the nose aside, it was brilliant.
After all that hard work, we tucked into a well deserved lunch while the captain took us towards our second destination Mackerel Bay. This time, there was no beach to swim from, so we went straight from the rib into the water at a section of shallow reef. The timing was good, although it was shallow as we arrived, the tide was coming in, making for some fantastic snorkelling. No turtles this time, but the coral was incredible. I had never realised the huge variety of coral that can be seen, some looked like briar patches, others like sponges, others like brains. We saw little shoals of fish swaying forward and back in the tide almost like leaves in the breeze.
Once we were all back on board and had another rope swing (the poor captain had to be like a school teacher – everybody one more go and then we have to leave!), we headed on for a sheltered cove where we stayed at anchor for the night.
All too soon it was the final day! We started with a bushwalk on yet another gorgeous island, where we saw monitor lizards, chilled out on another stunning, secluded cove and ate green ants, really! (they taste like sour jellies!). 
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