Big Fury by Megan

Note from Katy; we didn't have wi fi at Airlie beach, so these updates are a bit late. Dean and I really felt our age there..it was full of young backpackers; a rep from a club totally passed me by when she was giving out flyers for a night club-cheek! The main street itself is fairly short, with lots of touristy shops, tour desks, take aways and pubs, but the area next to the ocean is lovely. There are two main marinas at either end, and a 3km boardwalk running alongside the ocean. The main attraction for us was the fab lagoon they've built right next to the water. We were staying right in the heart of Airlie beach, (view from our balcony:

and there were no stinger nets at any of the beaches near us, so we swam in the lagoon instead. The water was always warm, and you could swim until 9 o'clock. We decided on two trips out and about around the Whitsunday islands; mainly to incorporate snorkelling, but also to see the beautiful Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday island. We could have visited the islands with resorts, but I wanted to make the most of the reef while we had the chance, so we looked for options that offered something different each day; a speed boat one day (Megan will tell you about that), then a sailing catamaran (see Emma's blog) another day, with a day chilling at the lagoon in between (although the girls didn't exactly chill; they were in the water all day!) I am writing this in Rockhampton; our stop to breakup the journey between Airlie beach and Hervey Bay. Rockhampton doesn't seem to have much to offer; although with it being the beef capital of Australia, we had to have a steak, which really hit the spot! Today we went for a trip on the BIG FURY!! For the people at home who don't know what it is, it's a big boat with four engines. We were going really fast, yet surprisingly we didn't get sea sick. The spray from the water kept on splashing us and made us wet before we had even got off the boat.The boat was very powerful, and had rows of seats down the middle. When we were allowed to get on the boat, Emma and I rushed straight to the front of the boat as it would be more bumpy there!

When we got to our first stop, I looked over the boat and saw some coral sticking out of the water! As the tide was low, it meant we would be swimming extremely close to the coral and fish. The water was 29 degrees, and felt very warm. Underneath the water, the sight was amazing!! The coral was all sorts of shades and colours, and some of the fish were massive. If you put your head in the water, and stayed still, you could hear the parrot fish munching on the coral. There were about 1000000000000 parrot fish!! (Ok maybe not that many, but there were ALOT...)

When we all got back on the boat, we started to head for white haven beach. The instructor(RYAN) told us that soon the water would turn from dark blue to crystal blue. He was right. The water turned a really pretty shade of blue and we couldn't wait to get swimming in it!!

The sand was so white and soft, and Ryan said that you could brush your teeth with it if you wanted clean teeth but also a mouthful of sand!! He also said that if you had gold jewellery you could rub it in it, and it would come out better than new. I had brought a football from the boat, so Emma , we started to play with it. After we had about half an hour on the beach, we got called to lunch. Ryan showed us some massive goanna just behind all the food.

They were obviously lurking to see if they could get a free meal!! When we had finished lunch, we put our stinger suits back on, and went for the plunge. I asked my mum to sit on my shoulders for a ride and it worked........until she wobbled and fell off. We started to play catch in the sea.

After about a hour in the water, Ryan called us back on the boat. It didn't take long to get back to the harbour, and when we did, Ryan fed some fish the leftover food. They went mad for it! After we had finished dinner, we went for a late swim in the lagoon. It was very strange as the water felt as warm as bath water even though it was late.

We had an amazing day that I will never forget!