Hamilton Island, Great Barrier Reef Airport

I'm leaving Queensland for New South Wales. I am beginning to sound like an Ozzie, I know the names of the states. So I left the hostel in Airlie Beach this morning around 9:45. A bus picked me up to take me to the dock to catch a boat called the Whitsunday Cruises to take the boat to Hamilton Island airport. So instead of planes, trains and automobiles its coaches, boats, planes and trains. I will take the train in from the airport back to the central YHA for a two night stay. Christmas day I am going to lunch at my cousin's house in Turramura. It is a suburb of Sydney.
It was a great sailing experience out of Airlie Beach. We met at the Able Point Marina at 8:30 on Thursday morning. We walked to the boat and had to surrender our shoes. There were 12 passengers on board, a captain, a cook who doubled as sail helper and his girl friend who also doubled as cook. It was a 52 foot sail boat called the Iceberg. The sleeping accommodations were cosy. Which means there was just enough room to lay down. Thank goodness there was a small fan over my head other wise it would have been very hot. I was the only American on board. There were 3 couples from England, two austrians, two french, and one swiss woman. One of the austrians spoke no english and neither of the french or swiss spoke english. The younger of the french women spoke a little english and the swiss woman spoke and understood enough english to know what the people on the boat were saying.
We cast off and went sailing. The first place we stopped Brandon put us in the dingy and took us to an island and dropped us off. We walked across the water, in the sand. The sand was very coarse as it was made up of crushed coral. After an hour and a half He came back and got us and then we put on our stinger suits. Stinger suits are to protect you from jelly fish and other creatures that are present in the sea now that can cause harm and then we went snorkeling. It was a better experience than I had at the great barrier reef out of Cairns. Of course I was worried at first. I even wore a life jacket. Worried on two counts that I wouldn't be able to do it and worried that the Cyclone that was reported on the weather was coming to get us. And the Australian saying "No Worries" was actually accurate in this case. Brandon stayed out on the dingy around us as we snorkeled, the water was relatively calm and no cyclone showed up to ruin our day. Then we got back on the boat and went to another spot to snorkel. This time I took the life jacket off and again had no problem, seeing the giant angel fish, the parrot fish, the beautiful brain coral, the yellow fish with bright pink spots all over it. There was hot pink coral, red coral, blue tipped coral and all sorts of other fish darting around. The coral and the fish are in very shallow water. The snorkelers are not allowed to wear fins in this area because they damage the coral. Its time to board the aircraft.