The trip was done in an high powered 450 horsepower semi-rigid boat about 7 meters long called Wild Thing.
The crew, Jas and Shane were very friendly and professional in its explanations about the Whitsundays and we had a very nice description of the islands that we passed.
This was the general map of the area displayed on the shirts of our captain.
So we had the snorkeling stop about 40 mins of leaving the mooring.
However the water was very "cloudy" due to the recent rains and high tides (4m) and the visibility was only about 2m...
Still we saw lots of fish and diferent corals and even a giant shell.
I won't post more underwater photos from today because they are not really worth it...
After we left the snorkeling site we went for the bushwalk and to the Whitehaven beach. We landed on the northern tip and from there we started the trek
During the trek I had the chance to taste the Green ants, that the natives use as a source of nutrients and can be caught in the trees. They tasted "lemony" ;-)
And of course we met the most abundant wildlife in the island...yes....spiders...more of the gold orb weavers..
Even an arachnophobe like myself has to admit they have amazing colors and patterns...and since they lay very still in the middle of their web I could appreciate them from "safe" distance while Filipa was taking this great photos. Just some more facts about these spiders: the name comes from the golden tinge their webs have and these big ones are the females. The small ones that surrounds them are the males and a female can have up to four males...and of course if hunger strikes she eats them..
From the top of the island we can see the whole bay that I've already shown you in yesterdays post. The different shades of blue/green are really amazing!
This bay is also a nursery for Lemon Sharks and Manta Rays and we manage to spot some small sharks ( about 60 cm) just 2-3 m from us gliding in the warm water.
We had our lunch then at the southern end of the Whitehaven beach. Instead of sand it has only pure, very small, silica grains, that are so reflective that the sand is never warm to the point of scalding the feet. However, they said to us to put extra sun block because there we would get burned from all the directions! The silica sand is also great to clean all metals and it is a perfect skin exfoliating agent. But they warned several time not to take the sand away, since the fine and criminal charges for being caught with even 1g of Whitehaven silica, are even heavie thanmto be caught with cocaine! They are also extra careful not tomleave anything behind and the signs say to take nothing and leave behind just footprints.
There are also plane and helicopte excursions to the beach
And this is one of the local fishes that are constantly swimming around us
Another local species are the Monitor Lizards, called oguanas by the locals
The ones we saw were 80-100cm in size with sharp claws and they stayed near the lunch sites since they are used to eat some leftovers that people throw them.
To finalize I'll just show you the jellifish protective suit that we all use everytime we are in the water, the Stinger suit
This compete lycra suit protects not only from the jellyfish but also from the stinging sun while we are snorkling!
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