Day 23 - Airlie Beach (Sunday)

What an epic day! My room is pretty close to the center centrum. Waking up I heard this music and wondered what was happening....


Airlie Beach (pronounced "Elle Beach") is our final stop on this journey. What a gem this place is. It reminds me a lot of Catalina Island only with warm, clear water. If visiting here by cruise ship know that it is a 30 minute tender and our ship took over 3 hours to get everyone aboard. So get your tinder ticket early to get there and have time to enjoy the beach.  Shortest stop of all stops. Got here at 11, leaving at 5:30.

The port of Ailie Beach	Local catamaran and ship boats tendered you the distance to port
		You can just make out our ship in the distance
		Our vessel awaits

Given the tight time I went ahead and took a gamble, booking the Whitsunday's Sailing and Snorkeling Adventure even though nothing was really found online about it. Turns out, it was epic! It should be noted that this is NOT for someone who gets motion sickness. At the end of the trip several people were feeling queezy because the boat goes get up and move.

How the locals apply sunscreen

Destination plotted, munchies food laid out for our 30 minute ride. Only thing left to do is set the sail and off we go.

		It's jellyfish season in the water so everyone must wear a full suit
We're here!	A private sandbar and island	The darker spots in the water is reef

For this trip I just couldn't justify the $450+ to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. As luck would have it I got a sampling of what that is like plus I only did it with 40 other people.

The reef would just appear as this merky, dark form initially	The closer you got the clearer it became	To the bottom of the ocean floor was only 15'
		Fish everywhere, not afraid of people

1.5 hour of snorkeling over, time to head back to the boat, get some lunch then really open the sails to see what speed we can get.

Our luck continued this trip. There hadn't been any wind for more than 2 weeks. Today we reached 23 knots. No reason to go right back to the ship. We set out on an hour sail. So so much fun!! Even the captain was beaming a huge smile when he hit 23knots.


Great, amazing, spectacular day. Only an equally amazing sunset would do.

While we were off playing in port the aerial crew finished setting up for the big show



The night wasn't over yet. Each floor around the elevators had a showcase of towel animals each attendant could create. Quite impressive. However, once early dining was over and the older folks went to bed the animals wanted to break out and have some fun. Oh those towel animals~

		(Swan to the bear) "Hey, you want to make this a more exciting night?"
"I love riding elevators!"	"Would you like me to play a song while we go to the next floor?"	"I still love my elevator! Woohoo"
Conga conga conga!	"Does this lift go to the nightclub?"

Final sea day tomorrow then it's all over.