This is a must do if you get the chance. We chartered our yacht from Charter Yachts Australia in Airlie Beach (http://www.charteryachtsaustralia.com.au/) - they are a friendly bunch of guys who are keen for you to have a fantastic time aswell as being safe. They took us through a safety briefing and over the yacht. We took out a 40' Catalina called "Satori" - very roomy down below and a real comfortable boat for the 2 of us to sail albeit a little large for our needs but that made it that much more comfortable.
We loaded our provisions on board and we were off - how scary! We anchored the first night just round the corner in a bay, this gave us time to get used to the boat.
As you can see, below decks was very comfy and we had all the room we needed. The next day we headed over to Hook Island and dropped anchor in bay over here. After an evenings snorkel towing the tender behind us we had dinner and then a drink up on deck watching the sun go down. It was fantastic to have sailed to this place ourselves, dropped anchor, had a snorkel and then just to have drinks and be here all on our own. We were loving it.
"Satori" moored to a buoy at South Molle Island.
The next few days we had to meet up with the guys from the charter company as we had a problem with our water on board. After this we decided to head through the straits between Hook Island and Whitsunday Island on our way to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. We came across a family of whales just before the straits, we stayed and watched them for a while and then headed off to Whitehaven Beach - what a fabulous place this is, one of the best beaches I've ever been to. We got there before the day trippers and had the place to ourselves - we dropped anchor and boarded the tender and headed off to the beach. The sand was silky smooth and practically white - what a fabulous place. We played around for the morning here and had lunch onboard.
Whitehaven BeachAs we headed back up to Hook Island we encountered some more whales - a mother and calf this time. We dropped the sails and put on our motor and just pottered around here for a while. The whales swam under our boat and were just as curious about us as we were of them. We were there for about 45 mins just watching the whales. A fabulous experience and even better for the fact we hadn't had to go on a trip or excursion to see them, they were just here, with us.
We headed back up to HookIsland for more snorkelling and watched the sun go down - with a drink on deck obviously.
We crossed the sea towards South Molle Island - we had a fabulous crossing, the wind was a south easterly and this meant that we were on a beam reach for most of the crossing with a force 4 wind, it was perfect sailing conditions. (see photo above) - even Helen had a turn on the helm! This was amazing and made me want to take sailing up further.
We moored up at a buoy at South Molle, jumped in the tender to pay our mooring fees and then climbed up the hill on South Molle to take a look - see photo above. What a view!
All in all, we had a fabulous time around the Whitsundays, we'd highly recommend it to anyone, its perfect sailing even for the novice and the views are out of this world.
