We made it to Airlie beach on Sunday, and set sail for The Whitsundays on Monday – and we made it back in one piece! The Whitsundays are mesmerizing, and low-key lethal if you set one foot out of place. I may be exaggerating on that last guy, but also I’m absolutely not and my takeaway from the Whitsundays are that they are best personified by Sharon Stone in Basic Instinct. Hyper-attractive, likes to party a whole lot, why wouldn’t you want to get involved and have an absolute blast here, laughs in your face for acting like there’s anything dangerous to suspect here so let’s just get after it, and will also just balls-out murder you in the most agonizing way possible if you get a little ahead of yourself and forget who you’re messing with.
Cast and Crew of the Whitsundays Getaway:
We cruised on the Whitsunday Getaway for 2 nights with a total bang-up crew – Captain Ron (yes, it was very amazing and he really lived up to the name and Kurt Russel would be proud) and Maggie the Host. Captain Ron has essentially lived on a boat for all but 2 years of his life and his off-hand stories we made him tell us included casually saving a guy’s life (he accidentally came across him on a pier, thought he was a kangaroo at first, and then talked him down from jumping into the water with a noose around his neck), and being really good at tracking down lost idiot tourists (not me this time thank god). Maggie is from Alaska, met her boyfriend at a treehouse festival in Nicaragua after solo tripping through Central America for three months, and is now on a sail-hosting stint (and killing it) before hopefully getting let in soon to New Zealand, where her boyfriend is from and hasn’t been able to get back to since COVID, when the borders open up. I love them both.
I really like Australia because it lights a fire under your ass eight ways to Sunday; outside of living 24/7 with the awareness that you’re probably no less than 100 yards away from at least 2 different types of things that can viciously kill you, everyone here also just generally seems better than you at everything and it’s weirdly exciting. Barbie and Ken-infested Bondi beach not even coming into the conversation, we just keep meeting people who are not afraid, incredibly interesting, and often better-travelled than we are – which is quite a reflective experiencewhen your modicum of self awareness means you know that you can from time to time feel smug about being a tad more adventurous, interesting, and well-travelled than the average American Joe.
To underscore this point, here is who also travelled with us outside of our aforementioned crew:
A preternaturally beautiful Italian-Australian couple Gianni and Isabella. Gianni does marketing for a Tuscan Travartine quarry but lives in Australia and the first time he tried marketing he successfully put on a fully-produced Classical Music Concert INSIDE THE QUARRY and 1,000 people showed up. He also has better more luxurious curly dark beautiful hair than I’ve ever seen on anyone else ever in my life except for Vince from Entourage. He has travelled and met people just about everywhere. Isabella just graduated and speaks Italian, Spanish, English and Russian and has LIVED (not just visited) on 3 continents and her butt is so perfect and unbelievable that it could single-cheekedly make every wannabe Instagram Influencer in the world cry tears of rage and hopelessness and give up their aspirations forever.
Newlywed parents of 4 Maureen and Dan. Maureen is a doctor specializing in robotics, and Dan casually heads up HR for some big engineering company of thousands. Dan saw 30 American states in 3 months one time and Maureen has seen every country in the would and also been to Mars. She casually mentioned working her way down both South America and Africa from North tip to South tip, the entire European Union, 5 or 6 fascinating Slavic country adventures, and of course Antarctica, and then asked me if I could take some pictures of her paddle boarding for the first time (obviously she immediately stood up and didn’t ever fall) so her kids could see them. I think the only thing I’ve experienced that Maureen and Dan haven’t gotten a glimpse of is getting to sit in the 4th row for a live Jerry Springer taping (and the Balinese commercial thing obvi).
An important and long-winded note on my relationship with the jellyfish in the Whitsundays
The 8 of us had a grand old time and everyone was MUCH more adventurous than me because see above and also I somehow missed googling when and what “stinger season” was before booking our Whitsundays holiday and I happily learned what an Irukandji jellyfish was about 5 days before the trip started at which point sleepless panic ensued and after 38 years I discovered that an incapacitating phobia does, indeed, lurk inside me and I’ve just never had the luxury of discovering it all these years because the phobia is AUSTRALIAN JELLYFISH. Specifically the Box Jellyfish and the Irukandji Jellyfish as somehow I don’t even really have a problem with the Bluebottle one which can ruin your life for a few weeks but just less slightly ensures SUDDEN DEATH AND PSYCHOSIS. Stinger season in Queensland is October-May (so let’s just call it forever) and there are warning signs on almost every beach for the 2 main bad boys. Here’s a rundown of my googling and interview adventures:
Box Jellyfish: Will likely just flat out murder you if it touches you. Feels like you’re being burned with a hot iron except x 10 and Maggie conspiratorially filled me in that her friend said if you get stung by a Box Jellyfish and you’re not immediately dead “you might as well just end it yourself right then” because the pain is that bad. But then she brightly chirped “But don’t worry though because usually we don’t see then where we’re going they’re more of a coastal thing.” “USUALLY“ IS NOT GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME, MAGGIE.
Irukandji Jellyfish: Super-extra exciting and mania-fanning because they are clear and smaller than a thumbnail so you usually can’t even SEE them (until it’s too late obviously) and instead of flat-out killing you these guys will just give you a mild sting and then float away before 5-30 minutes later when the real neurotoxic fun starts. Agonizing muscle cramps, vomiting, nausea, burning sensation through your entire body and, my personal favorite, “an overall feeling of impending doom known as Irukandji Syndrome.” More super exciting because Irukandji season actually extends through May and it’s May. But Cap’n Ron assuaged my fears by telling me “May’s not too bad, you should have seen what it was like 2 months ago!!” And also “well i helped a guy in January on another boat with a situation, but he was alright after we got him airlifted to the hospital and put him on oxygen for a few days.” Really just stop it because no.
So if you’re asking “how on EARTH do people swim anywhere in Queensland or the Whitsundays?!?!” One is answer is you just don’t in some places in certain seasons because it’s absolutely not safe but everyone is weirdly Ok with this and you just look at the beautiful water and don’t go in for punishment of self-inflected death if there is a warning not to. The other more agreeable answer is: Stinger Suits! Stinger suits basically equal full-body Lycra, neoprene, microfiber, etc. rash guards that cover 75% of your body from murderous jellyfish attacks that everyone up in this area just knows to wear in the water at basically all times if they aren’t an idiot, or, in my case, a full-body rash guard that also includes a full hood, mittens, and booties because you are a phobic psychopath and you insist on buying your own at the dive shop where the dive shop man tells you that your fears are irrational and stupid and if you just wear a suit you’ll be fine and for god’s sake the boat will GIVE you a dive suit and you don’t need to buy your own with mittens and a hood but if you really aren’t going to stop losing your mind on me about this here is a stinger suit with a hood and with mittens and feet and that will be A$99 and please just get out of my store now this is why I cannot stand Americans. (Incidentally, this guy was originally from Buffalo and he was actually pretty awesome although it was clear he did not respect me in the least and I do not blame him for this).
I am deeply loving Australians as well simply because they are so surrounded by things that can be dangerous, but their positive, practical, “oh come on are you kidding me just use your head and don’t -go-near-that-bugger-over-there!” attitude really just seems to work. It’s a crazy concept to grasp as an American that there are actually reasonable enough places where you’re expected and encouraged to use your own common sense and critical thinking skills to keep safe rather than relying on railings and cages and electro-shark-pulsars and all other manner of human-enforced bubble wrap to do it for you. Seems to work pretty darn well. But I’m still not buying it fully for the jellyfish.
What We Did
Even with my personal overbearing stinger suit, this is the first trip I’ve taken where my fear was so big that it actually limited what i was willing to do (I’m sorry but psychologically it was just really hard to get over how wearing a Teletubby suit would protect me from imminent doom or death and also what about the 3 inches of my face that aren’t covered and also a jellyfish could go down my snorkel tube if I shimmied under water like i normally do to look at things), and I cut one of our snorkel tours short and got in the boat early like “that American Lady” which I’m not happy about (everyone else who kept going saw some more cool fish than I did and also Reef Sharks) but I also would do again because i like a tentacle-free life. That said, the water activities were still extraordinary and more extraordinary still for those who are allocate their phobia weakness to more mundane things like spiders or crocs – which Australia will happily accommodate, as well!
After seeing an end-to-end double rainbow (come on, Whitsundays, why you gotta be so beautiful), anchoring at some beautiful bay and falling asleep to a purple-orange dream sunset, and waking up to Green Turtles everywhere around the boat popping up to take cute little deep audible breaths like silly loveable old grandpas, we hit up Whitehaven Beach, i.e. the real reason everyone comes to the Whitsundays.
Whitehaven Beach looks like heaven – so much so that it’s easy to forget that you can totally get eliminated Darwin-style. Think you’re too cool to wear a stinger suit while you wade around in the see-through knee deep waters that stretch on forever into the horizon?? JELLYFISH-ED!!!! Don’t want to listen to the warnings about giving the peaceful little rays on the shore enough space to feel calm, or run all around without looking where you’re putting your foot down?? STINGRAY-ED!!! Fun fact is that Whitehaven is actually where a good chunk of Pirates of the Caribbean was filmed – NOT the Caribbean – and they even brought in palm trees to “dress the set” – palm trees which now have a new adopted home on the grounds of the lovely resort where I’m writing this!
After Whitehaven was the Snorkel #1 which is also the one i mentioned where I’m the worst and I got in the boat early. In my defense, a fucking Irukandji definitely floated by my face and I may have peed a little.
I did however survive all of the Manta Ray Bay snorkel which was, essentially, a full-on Giant Tame Fish party and one of the cooler experiences in all my travels. Cap’n Ron added threw some fish food in the water, we rolled off the boat, and 15 minutes of fish frenzy ensued in which we were completely surrounded by Fusiliers, Batfish, Giant Trevali, and a giant-ass Maori Wrasse (nearly the size of me) named George. No Mantas on our trip, but also no angry sharks or evil Irukandji, so I will take it.
Fun fact: Manta Ray Bay and one other bay nearby were historically used as fish cleaning sites by boaters, so tour boats like ours are able to responsibly feed the fish (there’s a limit per boat) without negatively impacting their reliance on human food or changing the learned feeding habits of these guys over the past several decades. I’m very glad of this because being nearly head-butted by George was a very exciting and pleasing experience.
So, if you’ve read to the bottom of this (good God, congratulations), I sincerely hope your takeaway is not that the Whitsundays are a terrifying death chamber but rather one of my favorite places we’ve gotten to go – it simply comes with a more consequential – and much more casually slapped on – warning label. Read it carefully, get that Stinger Suit, and book a flight. And maybe don’t google what an Irukandji is until after your trip.
On to Byron Bay next, more stories to come!