A day + 14 - Sydney

( this is just a placeholder post since we have to board the plane in 10 mins or so. I will updated back home with the full report. I'll just leave you with some pictures ;-) h



















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A day + 13 - 13 December - Goodbye Airlie Beach

This day was a travel. With a sore heart we had to leave our nice apartmrnt with its lovely view and start the journey back home







We took the Whitsundays transit bus back to Proserpine airport and then took the flight to Brisbane. Next is an aerial photo from the Proserpine area with its flooded plains and swamp areas, where during the monsoon season they can even fish the Barramundi out of the unflooded areas of the highway!



On the back you can still see some of the Whitsundays. The next picture is from the Brisbane River and the Brisbane sprawl



After four hours wait at the airport we finally took the flight to Canberra were we were picked up by pur friends to spend the last night in Canberra before going to Sydney for the last night.

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A day + 12 - 12 December - Seafood day

This day we took it of to rest of the previous days excursions, and we previously decided we should try the australian seafood.
We were lucky in the previous dqys since today was raining a lot! During the morning we we were under a non-stop strong tropical rain storm
We had already reviewed some of the Airlie beach seafood restaurant reviews in tripadvisor and other sites but during one of the excursions, one of the crew members ( that shall remain anonymous ;-)) said to us the best we could do was to go directly to Buck's seafood shop at Whitesundays shopping centre and buy shrimps and moreto bay bugs. He said it was much cheaper and we would get fresher seafood than at any restaurant in the area. So we decided to follow his advise and the day before we went to the seafood store and to the grocery and got ourselves the ingredients:

1) mayonese, chilli peper, parsley and garlic. We already had the butter and bought a couple of beers from the apartments reception









2) 600g of Green banana shrimps. The seafood shop had run out of king prawns :-( but these looked also decent sized and tasty.









3) 4 Moreto bay bugs already boiled. These lobster like creatures looked similar to the small atlantic lobsters or the "bruxas" or "cavacos" also found in the portuguese coast.



















So we followed the recipe that the lady in the seafood shop gave us. peel the shrimps, put a bit of butter , garlic, chilli pepper and stir for 4-6 mins. We also added parsley and black pepper for extra taste










And here is the end result:








Then we proceeded to cut the bugs and clean them as they explained us to do it.








The black and yellow guts you see in the next picture were removed










And we also prepared some dips : a "pink" dip with chilli and a bit of the remaining shiraz I bought for the previous meals, a parsley one and a garlic one








And here is the resulting seafood feast we had that cost only us 20AUD in seafood and an extra 10-12 AUD in the remaining ingredients!








It was a lovely meal and we are very gald we followed the advice that was given to us! The bugs are defibetely a must since they are more tasty and have softer than lobster.
The smell must have been nice since it even attracted some wild life: a cuckatoo came to take a peak when the rain stoped in the afternoon









After the rain stoped a bit we still managed to have a walk downtown in Airlie beach to have a lastblook at the stores. Because of the rain, every turist looked miserable and bored and most of the people spent the afternoon in the town bars trying to forget the bad weather by drinking it away;-)

It was a pity the heavy rain or otherwise we would have spent the afternoon at the Airlie beach pond, its public swimming pool. Well maybe a next time
;-)
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A day + 11 - 11 December - Fantasea Reef World

The last excursion we scheduled was to the Great Barrier Reef, more precisely to Hardy Reef. We took the Fantasea excursion, and after about 3 hours, with only a short stop in Hamilton island, we finally arrived to Fantasea Pontoon!




We have been unlucky in the sense that was high tide so the view was not that impressive since there weren't any corals sticking out in the water...




The Fantasea Pontoon as a permanent inhabitant, George, a groper. And that is a big fish, with about 2m in length.Here is a picture taken from the observation area. It always keeps close since it is fed by the crew with freah fish!







Then we get our teletubbie suits,ehrr...i mean stinger suits and got the snorkeling gears and we were of to the water that was at a confortable 27C!
Here you can see Filipa dangling he fins from the platform with a school of fish passing by



And here am I with my yellow stinger suit!


The underwater view of the reef is amazing. It is what is called a platform reef, and it extendes for over 2300km! It is the only living structure observable from earth's atmosphere and it is home for over 1500 species of species and thousands of coral species. I can't even imagine the diversity of bacteria and other microorganisms that inhabit the reef. Here are some photos that I managed to colro correct using the Filterstorm iPad app and others corrected by my friend PMB.






The last picture is from a knucklehead maori wrasse. And the next one was from a gian clam about 1m in lenght. There aren't two aliek and we must have seen hundreds of them


Spot the Nemo (clown fish) in the next picture




And another giant clam



And again the Knucklehead maori wrasse. It was at least 60 cm in length. In this picture it is being followed by a school of dark parrot fish, and a coral trout


In the next picture you can see a purple brain coral



It is often the smallest things that amaze us most and this was also the case. The school of cuttlefish on the next picture was one of the coolest things we saw at the reef. They had only 3-4 cm in length and swam in a line formation. If we got closer to them they moved to a ball formation and one of them was always coming back to check on us and then moving back. There was at least two different of such scouts. But they were as curious about us, as us about them so they never swam away!




Here is an action shot of the cuttlefish being pursuee by one of their natural predators, the teletubbie Filipa




And in the next two pictures you can see a puffer fish in its natural enviroment. As you can see its camouflage is excelent.






And one last spot the Nemo(s) picture



The variety and colors of the coral was amazing. And the visibility was not great for what ti can be. it was some 15m but with lots of suspention in the water so I couldn't get some clear shots of the surreal coral walls that went from the surface to the bottom




Filipa spoted another turtle swimming away from the reef.



After the snorkle ans a nice barbecue lunch we went for the short semi-submergible boat wit the glass bottom to take a look of the reef in a drier perspective


And there we spoted our first jellyfish in the water since we got here. Filipa managed to get this difficult picture since they are practically transparent in the water and the camera couldn't focus



Just before leaving we still managed to watch another turtle that came out to breathe near the pontoon and took the time to have a little snack on the algies nearby


Finally we went back with lots of good memories, some nice photos and a day to remember! I strongly recomend everyone that can, to take a dive at the Great Barrier Reef ! It is really awesome and the pictures don't do it justice.






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A day + 10 - 10 December - Sailing in the Whitsundays

The day started with our bus pickup at 8h10, so an early wake up was needed. For this day we had booked the excursion to go to the Blue Pearl Bay in Hayman island. According to a Canadian couple we previously met on the train from Neranga to Brisbane Domestic Airport two days ago,that was the best spot to snorkle in the fringing reefs of the whitsundays at the time.

The boat that would get us there was Maxi Ragamuffin, a World Class Racing Maxi Yatch.



The weather was not looking great and we even had some showers in the morning. There wasn't much wind so we just sailed without motor for about 30 mins but is a great feeling listening only the waves and the wind. After a while, when we got enough distance from the mainland the weather got better and a nice sun shone on us! We were sailing to sunnier "pastures"!







And here was our Skipper, George, and one of the crew , Emma




After about 1h30 we arrived to Blue Pearl Bay and by then we already had the snorkeling gear and the stinger suits.




The water was much more clear than the day before and we had about 10m visibility. There was no sand at the beach of the bay only remains of coral and small rocks



The snorkeling was very good and we spent 1h30 on it!
Here is a picture of me snorkeling from your perspective




And herenis Filipa swimming with the fishes that followed us everywhere.



The reason for us having a personal escort of a school of fish was they were waiting to be fed by the guys from the boat and, when they did it we couldn't see anything since we became completely surrounded by fish!



Here are some more of the fishes we saw there:









There were also amazing corals and giant clams





And we were even lucky enough to spot a turtle near the beach feeding of the coral. We have a lot of pictures of the turtle since it simple ignored us!







It was a great day with an amazing snorkeling. We then had a nice lunch aboard of the ship and sailed back home. The crew was amazing always explaining things to us and ofering sunscreen all the time for us to avoid a nasty sunburn. We highly recomend this excursion to anyone wanting a relaxing day and dive in the Whitsundays!

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