It was simply amazing. After driving around so much I was definitely looking for a chance to relax on the boat. With any kind of tour though, it depends on the group of people that you go out with for how relaxing your trip is. I had heard that some of the boats were party boats, some of the boats were more orientated towards sailing. I didn’t want to get on a boat that everyone partied 24/7 but I also didn’t want to get on a boat with a bunch of loners that didn’t talk to anyone.I had signed up to go out on a boat called the Eureka II with Prosail. They ended up not having enough people on that trip to go out so we merged with the group from the Hammer and were put onto a boat called Broomstick.
Originally built for the Cape Town to Rio Race, this Maxi Yacht is 76 feet long and sleeps 25. We only had 15 people and 4 crew this trip so we had lots of room to stretch out.The weather on the day we set out was perfect blue sky and warm. Luckily it held like that for the 3 days we were out on the water. The weather definitely helped in making this tour the best thing I’ve done so far.After making sure we had all our food and all our alcohol we headed out into the islands. First stop on the itinerary was Whitehaven Beach. I had seen many pictures of the famous area but nothing is like actually being there
It really was surreal being in such a beautiful place. We had a good discussion with, Ben, one of the crew, about coming to a place so often for work and how some people appreciate the area less the more they see it. “Not me,” he says, “this is my office.” Lucky bastard.Along with beautiful views in the daytime, there were incredible sights in the evening. Both nights we had beautiful sunsets and could see whales off in the distance on the second evening.
We didn’t get to do as much sailing as we would normally have done since we had to drop 2 of the guys off at Hamilton Island to catch a plane. As nice as the sailing was it just wasn’t fast enough to get us there on time so we had to motor it. The rest of the day was spent cruising around in a wind that was about 15 knots.We spent the rest of the time laying around on the boat, on the beach, or snorkeling around near shore. Those than wanted helped raise the sails when it was time which was hard work!I’d say things can’t any better than being out on a boat in the bright blue sky with a decent breeze and a bunch of good people.My Whitsunday Set on FlickrLinks:Prosail: BroomstickWhitehaven Beach[gmap]