Arriving Airlie Beach at seven in the morning I had only an hour before the boat left, so I jumped into a taxi from the train station and made it just in time for my sailing trip.
I had booked the British Defender, a boat accommodating as much as 30 people, but still being quite a fast and steady sailer. Steadier meant having a deeper keel, so we could not go into the more shallow and turquise waters like the catamarans, but we still got to see the beautiful waters from a distance.
Our first stop was a part of the Great Barrier Reef where everyone got an hour of snorkeling and some lunch. Visibility was poor and the coral were mostly dead which was dissapointment, but it was all made up for when we got to our next stop at Whitehaven Beach.
Whitehaven is known for having the purest silica sand in the World, making it crystal white, always cold even on the sunniest days and as turquise as the waters in the Maldives.
The city where the Whitsundays boats are departing from, Airlie Beach, was pretty small so I jumped on a train continuing up north the same night.