After the gem fields didn’t give us the desired result, we finally found a real jewel: Airlie Beach! Already on approach the place sparkled in it’s setting of forested hills and islands. Apart from a few fallen trees there was no evidence that only recently cyclone Debbie had raged across this area.
The Whitsunday Islands were named by Captain Cook after the Christian “White Sunday”, the day of his arrival. However what Cook didn’t realise was that he had crossed the time zone and it was in fact Monday here!
We were thrilled to find, just 2 km from town, a nice caravan park with a reasonable price. At 7am in the morning we realised why the camp fees were so low: right beside us was a runway from which one tourist plane after the other took off with a loud roar. But it was ok, because except of the whistling “baby cry” of the bush stone curlews and the usual chainsaw next to me, the nights were quiet.
On recommendations of our caravan park manager, we booked in for a day of sailing and snorkelling on the “Derwent Hunter”, a 70 year old tall ship built of blue gum, Tasmanian oak and huon pine. Of the 30 odd passengers on board at least 9 were Germans, there were French Canadians, Dutch, English and even a few Aussies. Indiscriminately we were all put to work hoisting the sails as we were making our way towards Hook island. The crew were great fun and gave us informative talks about the ships interesting history i
n research and film, and of course the wildlife. We learned that dolphins play with puffer fish and get “high” on their poison. Turtle females are very selective in whom they mate with, and parrot fish chew off the hard coral, so the sand around the reefs is largely parrot fish poo!
The crew took us in tenders to the reef along the west coast of Hook Island. We had a wonderful hour of snorkelling at each of two locations. The corals here were more colourful and varied than we had previously seen. 
There were clams, sea cucumbers, anemones, soft and hard coral and a variety of coral fish.
At the second location were bigger fish, rock lobsters, coral trout - we even saw a huge manta ray and a big sea turtle, which, as our skipper said, might have been already around when Captain Cook sailed in!
On the way back to Airlie Beach, to our delight a whale mother and calf made a playful appearance. Of course we visited Airlies great Abell Point Marina and marvelled at the beautiful and luxurious boats.
Most of them would have dwarfed our “Freshwater”. We also to checked out the newly purchased catamaran of a Sydney acquaintance. Luckily a representative of the boats leasing agency was around. He gave us a tour of the ultra modern saloon, galley and the three bedrooms with ensuite bathrooms. It was absolutely amazing!