Winter in the Whitsundays is a truly magical time. Warm days, clear skies, no threat of rain to spoil days spent gently yachting around the pristine islands. Winter also brings a few extra surprises, some friends from down south, a certain elite group known as the “Megaptera Novaeangliae”. This group create quite the spectacle for seafaring tourists and locals alike and are more commonly referred to as the Humpback Whales!
Emperors Wings Dive Deck
Winter shined a lucky light on me this year as it was my turn to experience the newest (note: brand new!) addition to the Whitsunday Sailing Adventures fleet and the outer Great Barrier Reef at the same time! The 18 metre fibreglass, custom built dive catamaran was to be my home for the next three nights, and I was not complaining!
The first of the features immediately demanding my attention as I followed the 25 other passengers to the marina arm was the impressive, stainless steel dive platform that dominated the stern of the vessel. The platform serves many purposes during the trip, the first of which was being demonstrated with the collapsible arms folded down and supporting the Vessels large yellow tender. I would get to experience the other reasons for myself once we arrived at one of our numerous dive sites.
As soon as we stepped aboard we all felt very welcomed by the extra friendly crew who were as excited about the trip as we all were. As a side note, we had three dive instructors which indicated we were in for a REAL diving adventure! The next impressive feature I noticed upon stepping onboard was the shiny new Nitrox tank filling compressor. This will allow the crew to prep SCUBA tanks with a richer oxygen mix allowing for deeper dives and lower nitrogen build up in the blood. A very handy device to have on a serious dive vessel.
The comfortable big catamaran was to be the platform for a number of excited travellers first ever dive experience. With so many experienced dive instructors on board everyone was equipped and ready to dive with routine efficiency. First in the water were the introductory divers, completely ‘fresh’ and brimming with enthusiasm. The following two groups of certified divers were chomping at the bit to prove their skills in the calmer waters of the fringing barrier reef before the expedition to the impressive Bait Reef.
Manta Ray at Bait Reef
Although our vessel was perfectly equipped for diving she also had Whitehaven Beach set clearly in her itinerary of beautiful places to visit. Early morning had us waking up at Tongue Bay to the sporadic games of hide and seek played by the resident turtles surfacing to see if we were watching or not. The sheltered bay is a feeding site for sea turtles being home to plentiful floor coverings of sea grass. With that as the first sight of the day it was hard to see how the day would improve. Just thirty minutes later improvement arrived. We were standing atop Hill Lookout admiring the world famous Whitehaven Beach and Hill Inlet at low tide displaying for us the stunning artwork of ivory white sand and the most luminous sky blues; a unique tidal tapestry woven that morning for our eyes only.
Under full sail we point point the bow directly away from land and enjoy the journey. At the end of some pleasant sunbaking we arrive at the impressive and otherworldly sight of the Great Barrier Reef. Completely surrounded by the living organism protruding from the water with no land mass in sight, we are reminded it is low tide, and we are VERY lucky to have this as our resting place for 2 more days!
The return sail from Bait Reef to the mainland provided much more of the best, sunbaking, relaxing, sailing and of course more whale watching! Having been absolutely spoilt with freshly prepared and cooked food all trip I was feeling quite content and glint of disappointment crossed me as I realised I was returning to the real world! My aquatic playground home had come to an end and I was feeling much richer for the experience.
