More Like the Whit-FUN-days! Part I

This past Thursday, at six in the morning, Natalie and I and our American friend Lane embarked on a journey to the Whitsunday Islands. The Whitsundays are an island chain located about a three hour drive south of Townsville, and we had booked spots on Powerplay, a catamaran that would take us on a three-day, two-night trip through the islands. So we loaded up Natalie and Lane’s RA Catherine’s car (she was gracious enough to lend it to three strange Americans for a few days) and headed out. Unfortunately, we headed out in precisely the opposite direction of where we were supposed to go. After quickly realizing and correcting our mistake, we headed out again, confident of our navigating ability. That confidence, it turned out, was unfounded: we again found ourselves going in the wrong direction. For those of you keeping track, that’s twice we got lost in the first five minutes of our trip. The future did not look bright.

Somehow, though, we were able to find the highway and make our way to Airlie Beach, our departure point, encountering no further route-related problems along the way. One thing, though: it was raining. Now, this may not seem like a big deal, but consider this: we have been in Australia for over a month and I have not seen rain once. Of course, the exact day that we leave for a short vacation in the SUN, it rains. The lousy weather continued all weekend: rain, clouds, wind, unreasonably cool temperatures. In fact, it was so windy that we didn’t get to go to all of the places that Powerplay normally visits. Don’t worry, the trip was still fantastic, and I would recommend it to anyone. Just hope for sun.

Anyway, the three of us boarded the boat, along with nine other passengers and three crew members. Let’s meet them, shall we?

The Crew

• Brad—the “skipper.” He was Australian and in charge of driving the boat, making sure we were all safe, transporting us in a dinghy to our designated scuba dive locations, that sort of thing.
• Angie—Australian dive instructor. She was easily one of the most cheerful, excitable people that I have ever met, always laughing and smiling and gushing over what we had seen on our latest dive.
• Trish—Irish hostess. She cooked all of our meals in the tiniest kitchen in the world. She was busy (but still cheerful nonetheless), because they fed us TEN times in 48 hours. It was completely absurd.
  

The Passengers

Aside from Natalie, Lane and I, there were nine others who joined us on the boat.

• Antonio, Pedro and Eugenia, three Spaniards who were dubbed “Team Spain” early on in the trip. They were certified divers and spoke passable English. Antonio was a somewhat of a practical joker, tickling people with blades of grass the one time we got off the boat. Pedro and Eugenia were siblings. The three of them were on a world tour, and had recently spent time in Thailand.
• Tim and Nicola, a young English couple who had quit their jobs in London and were traveling the world before settling in Sydney for a few months. They occupied the bunk nearest us. What this meant is that Natalie and I had to climb over their bed every time we wanted to get to ours. It was a strange setup and I will describe it in more detail later.
• Juliann, a German woman just out of university who was backpacking through Australia for six weeks.
• Steve and Mary Jo, an older American couple from California on a two-week Australian vacation. Mary Jo shared her seasickness medicine with Natalie, who needed it because the boat was especially rough due to the high winds. Steve rubbed me the wrong way when he told me a story about waiting in line for Dan Marino’s autograph and used the word “colored” to describe someone standing in front of him in line. Ah, casual racism. I didn’t really talk to him much after that.
• Bob, the only native Australian not in the crew, was a waiter from Sydney who sat outside for much of the trip, poor weather be damned. He was kind of ornery, but in a likable way.

I’ll conclude Part I there. Part II, in which I describe the boat, our diving exploits, and everything else, comes tomorrow, probably. Maybe later today, if I get bored of doing engineering problems. Also, I haven't included any pictures because I have a lot to choose from and want to post an entire album somewhere online. I will certainly include the link when it gets put together.