VIDEO OF WHITSUNDAY ISLAND
The boat is called Tongara and it is a catamaran. I think there were about 25 people or so on the boat, and we sailed around the island and reef, snorkled, drank lots of good, got naked, and had an amazing time. The trip was three days, two nights, and every night we slept on the deck of the boat. It was pretty epic. Definitely worth doing if you ever get around to Australia.
The boat leaves from Airlie Beach, which is located in central Queensland. It's a pretty cool little town and a lot of tourists and backpackers go though it.
We went to Airlie Beach after leaving 1770. At one point the road was closed, for whatever reason, and we ended up going on a detour that probably cost us about three hours. When we were about 40k from Airlie Beach, the Van blew a tire and we didn't have a jack. Luckily, within a few minutes a girl pulled over and let us use the jack in her car, but when I couldn't get my spare down because I didn't have any tools, she drove 20k to the next town and picked up a wrench and came back. Once I got the spare down I realized that it didn't have any air in it, so again, the girl drove back to town with the tire, filled it with air, and drove back to us. I was pretty shocked that she went that far out of her way to help us, but I was glad she did otherwise we would have been stranded on the road for a very long time.
We ended up getting in to Airlie beach much later than expected, and all of the hostels were closed so we ended up sleeping in the van and in the morning we booked a hostel.
It's been a few months since that happened and as I write this it feels like it was so long ago. So much has changed since being on the Tongara. So much..
