Whitsundays cont'd/ Arlie Beach, Australia

Read this after blog "Next stop Arlie beach " (sorry, out of order)

35 people were on the boat. Three crew members and a captain toured us around islands. One guy was solely responsible for cooking and cleaning. He was an excellent cook. Another guy was dedicated to setting up and taking down the sails. While the third guy was the scuba instructor for those who wanted to dive. Our captain was hardly seen as he spent most of his time driving the boat.

 Ha ha.. Quite the sailor (not)

 

The 

real captain in action  ;)

Around 5 at night the crew would dock us in a calm area with other overnight boats.

We had delicious suppers and could actually eat them without wearing the food on our clothes (we would eat lunch while sailing, can you imagine how difficult that is when your rocking back and forth with the waves and getting splashed by salt water.) lol... After supper, everyone busted out the goon and beer to socialize and take in the serenity (Er, techno music!) our boat shone a light into the water and we

were entertained by the big, crazy, red eyed jumping fish. So funny to watch, as they splashed around and jumped into the air to eat the flying bugs. ..the second night we were dazzled by two dolphins. 

Beautiful, smooth dolphins danced around the light while our whole boat of people stopped to watch. They were so gorgeous,.. They swam with their white belly facing up and did a couple jumps for us.

I was only able to take "mind" pictures. Afraid to run and grab the camera in fear they would swim away.

We slept right on the boat. A room full of bunk beds was below the "kitchen". Even anchored in the lagoon at night, we were still rocked to sleep by the boat.

During the day we anchored in a calm area and the crew set up the inflatable slide, the diving board and released the paddle boards. Great fun had for hours!!


We saw rainbows (both ends) and shooting stars at night. It was "brilliant" as the Irish say.

The snorkelling was ok. Some pretty fish and brown coral. Not nearly as amazing as the phillipines but we can say we snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef.



As we were drinking goon on the wavy boat, we made sure to cheers to Whitney and Ryan as they were tying the knot in Melville. We saw pictures and Whitney looked beautiful in her gold and white dress. Ryan looked pretty darn good himself ;). Looked like the streifels partied it up and rocked out all night to air (and tinfoil) musical instruments all night ;) ! Whit and Ryan wrapped up our year of family weddings. 4 zunti weddings and 3 Streifel weddings .... It was super great to spend so much quality family time together. ( hopefully the next batch of family weddings will come soon ) ... Hint hint Jordan. (You already gave her a "right hand" ring, next comes the "left hand" ring)..


We were sailing the Great Barrier Reef and mom and dad were walking on glaciers in Argentina.! , how cool is that?!