Put a wetsuit on - Whitsundays Day 1 / 09.11.2018

Today we set off at 7:30 in the pouring rain to get to the harbour of Airlie Beach and the Apollo meeting point for our Whitsunday sailing tour.
Fortunately, the rain slowly stopped when we arrived, but the clouds remained. We immediately met some cool people, including a super funny guy who reminded me of an older and slimmer version of Conor Maynard.

After we got our wetsuits and filled out some health forms for the diving later, we went on the sailboat - the Apollo, a retired racing boat that had previously won quite a few prizes.
First, we went to our beds, Linni and I had to share a 'double bed' because there wasn't much space. Let's see how we will survive the nights. The bathroom was also a one-square-meter box and we couldn't see the showers at first. This will be interesting.

Then we went up to the railing, which was surrounded by lifelines so we could hold on and not fall overboard - but the lifelines were only about a meter high.

After hearing some things about sailing, including the Safeside and the Suiside - the latter is a pretty cool play on words because when it starts, one side should be almost underwater and it's better not to be there. So all 27 adventurers sat on the Safeside, we let our legs dangle and held on to the lifelines. Now the sun briefly appeared, which was good because once everything was ready and the huge sails were raised, the boat became extremely fast and raced through the rising waves, drenching us from top to bottom - although with the occasional sun flash through the clouds, it became very cold due to the wind, but the water itself was warm. We also met Till, another German, and together we were the only Germans on board, which surprised us because we were almost always outnumbered by the English and the occasional French.

After about an hour of sailing and with completely salt-crusted skin, we stopped at one of the Whitsundays, Hook Island, which was covered with rocks and rainforest and reminded me of Corsica once again, and had lunch before our dive - I was really excited because last time I couldn't equalize the pressure in my ears and had to resurface.

For lunch, we had pasta salad with mushrooms (which I ate, Mom!), salad, toast, and a large plate of sausages. We filled our plates and went upstairs to eat. However, the wind was still very strong, so food was flying everywhere, especially pieces of salad, but once a slice of sausage from me, which I couldn't find afterwards. Upsala (inside joke, because a Swede we met here comes from a place called Upsala, which is quite funny).

After lunch, we put on the 1mm wetsuits, which were supposed to protect us from the stingers, but they felt like normal fabric. When everyone was ready, we were transported from the Apollo to the coast by a motorized inflatable boat, where we attached our diving equipment in groups of four and slowly went deeper until we saw the reef - well, we saw it less because due to all the rain, the sand was completely churned up, but at least my ears were fine. It was pretty cool to breathe underwater and to feel weightless in general, but it wasn't particularly exciting overall, as we could only occasionally see some coral and the occasional fish. The dive was also not very long, so we went snorkeling afterwards until we went back on deck and headed to our anchorage for the night.

When we arrived there, we all took showers first - the shower was also in the small toilet cubicle and consisted simply of a shower tap connected to the sink and cold water. Lol. Lower the toilet seat, quickly washy washy - as our skipper Lucky described it (the Apollo crew consisted only of him, our dive instructor Dan, and our cook Jack the Ripper), soapy soapy, and done.

Then we went back up with our sweaters, where some people started drinking their brought alcohol - most of them had Goon, the cheapest wine here in Australia (4 liters for about 12 dollars), which is sold in plastic bags with a tap, and actually tasted quite good (warning: blackout danger, we were told). But we didn't really drink anything except the occasional sip offered, because we didn't think it necessary to spend money on alcohol, and we were having fun anyway.

The sunset - my first one here - was unfortunately not very spectacular because it was still quite cloudy and the sun quickly disappeared behind a wall of clouds, but the atmosphere was still good, and in the twilight, we could watch shoals of small silver fish jumping out of the water. Finally, with cool music playing from the speakers on deck and small lamps on the raised sail, we had dinner in the dark: rice with stew and garlic bread.

Linni and I climbed into our little bed around 10 p.m. - we took the lower one - and slept quite well, except waking up once at 2 a.m.

Song of the day: Wetsuit by The Vaccines, because a Swedish girl named Lisa Linda probably sang one line of it a thousand times after we got our wetsuits.