Whitsundays Day 4

Day 4 and we snorkelled off the beach on the west of Butterfly Bay and the coral was the best we’ve seen so far. Our destination for the day was going to be either Blue Pearl Bay or Stonehaven, depending on the snorkelling and the weather. We headed up north of Hayman Island and Blue Pearl Bay was so beautiful. Apparently the diving was excellent but the snorkelling was good too, but it’s a no fishing zone so we moved on to Stonehaven for the night. It was a bit nerve wracking because we couldn’t see any moorings then at last we found one on the northern side of the bay. We thought that maybe it had been left because it would be more exposed to the wind but it was fine.

From the dinghy we checked out the reef but didn’t think it was going to be great. We met a couple who’d been snorkelling and they confirmed our thoughts. We got chatting and invited them over for dinner – Annie and Michael from UK. We had a fabulous evening of pringles, prawns with bacon (Russ’s speciality) and battered fish and found out this was their first trip to Australia and they’d done a lot of great things here in addition to sailing. They had sailed a lot previously in 12 foot yachts and were finding Australian conditions quite different to the Med and loving the Whitsundays. We really enjoyed their company and gave them our contact details. They had both worked in the arts in London – Michael as CEO of the charity that managed the Tower of London and numerous other castles and Annie as a consultant.

In Blue Pearl Bay, lots of large Batfish gathered around our boat. They were delightful. Russ actually lifted one out of the water and it just looked at him until he put it in the water again.

 Stonehaven

Our lovely evening with Annie and Michael