Whitsundays 2-Day Overnight Sailing with Whitehaven Beach

Coral Sea Marina, Airlie Beach: setting sail

The tour begins at Coral Sea Marina on Shingley Drive, the large marina on the western side of Airlie Beach where most of the sailing boats are moored. It is about 15 minutes on foot from the main street, with a shuttle and taxis if you have luggage. You board around 08:00, meet the skipper and crew, stow your bag in the cabin area and listen to the safety briefing while the yacht motors out of the harbour and past the headland into the Whitsunday Passage.

Once the sails go up the engine goes off, and from here the trip is powered by the south-easterly trade winds. A racing-style yacht heels over and moves quickly, so this Whitsundays sailing tour feels very different from a motor catamaran: you can sit on the rail with your feet over the water, help winch the sails or simply watch the islands slide past. The crew point out the first islands within an hour of leaving Airlie Beach.

Sailing the Whitsunday Islands

The Whitsunday Islands are the tops of a drowned coastal mountain range, scattered across the Coral Sea between the mainland and the outer Great Barrier Reef. Most are uninhabited national park, covered in hoop pines and rainforest, with pale beaches tucked into their bays. The yacht sails through the Whitsunday Passage, past the Molle group and along the western side of Whitsunday Island, the largest of the group, with Hook Island and its deep fjord-like inlets further north.

Sailing is the best way to see this landscape because the islands close in around you: one moment you are in open water with a long view to the horizon, the next in a narrow channel with forest on both sides. Sea turtles surface near the boat, and in the winter months from around July to September humpback whales pass through the islands with their calves. The route and anchorages depend on the wind and tide, which the skipper decides each day.

Snorkelling the fringing reefs of the Great Barrier Reef

The reefs that ring the Whitsunday Islands are fringing reefs, the inshore part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, growing straight out from the island shores in sheltered bays. The yacht anchors at a snorkelling site chosen for the conditions, typically on the northern bays of Hook Island or the eastern side of Whitsunday Island, and you swim from the boat or a tender over coral bommies and gardens of hard and soft coral a few metres below the surface.

Expect parrotfish, wrasse, angelfish, clams with iridescent lips, and often a resident Maori wrasse or turtle. Snorkelling gear is provided, with wetsuits for warmth and full stinger suits in the summer jellyfish season from around November to May, when they are compulsory. There are usually two sessions, one on each day, so first-time snorkellers get a gentle introduction from the crew before the second site. Whitsundays snorkelling is shallow and sheltered, making it suitable for most confident swimmers.

Hill Inlet Lookout: the view over the swirling sands

Hill Inlet is the tidal inlet at the northern end of Whitehaven Beach where pure white sand and turquoise water mix into shifting swirls as the tide moves. The lookout above it is the most photographed viewpoint in the Whitsundays. The yacht anchors in Tongue Bay, the crew run you ashore in the tender and you follow a bush track up through the forest to the timber viewing platforms, a walk of about 20 minutes each way with a moderate climb.

The pattern of the sands changes with every tide, and the colours are at their best from mid-morning to early afternoon in sunshine; the crew time the visit as closely as the schedule allows. From the lookout you see the full sweep of Whitehaven Beach stretching south, the islands beyond and the pale sandbanks in the inlet below. On the way back down there is usually time to stand on the sand at the inlet itself, where stingrays glide through the shallows.

Whitehaven Beach: seven kilometres of silica sand

Whitehaven Beach runs for seven kilometres along the eastern shore of Whitsunday Island, inside the national park with no buildings, roads or shops. The sand is almost pure silica, so fine that it squeaks underfoot and so white that it stays cool in the midday sun and reflects a brilliant turquoise into the shallows. It is consistently ranked among the finest beaches in the world, and it is the reason most people take a Whitehaven Beach tour from Airlie Beach in the first place.

On this trip you reach the beach from the Hill Inlet end, with time to swim, walk the sand and photograph the water from the shore. Stinger suits are worn in summer; in the dry season from May to October the water is clear and the air pleasantly warm. The beach is accessible only by boat, seaplane or helicopter, so a sailing tour is the most relaxed way to see it with the lookout included.

A night at anchor among the islands

As the afternoon ends the skipper chooses a sheltered anchorage out of the wind, and the yacht settles for the night in a quiet bay with forest on the shore and no other lights. The crew prepare dinner in the galley, typically a hearty pasta dish with salads and fresh fruit, served on deck as the sun goes down behind the mainland hills in orange and pink. Afterwards the sky over the Whitsundays, far from any town, fills with stars, and on a moonless night the Milky Way is clearly visible.

Sleeping is on board in shared bunks or berths below deck, with the gentle movement of the water; bring an eye mask and earplugs if you are a light sleeper. Breakfast is served in the morning before the second snorkel session, and the yacht then sails back towards Airlie Beach, arriving at Coral Sea Marina around 16:00 to 17:00 on day two.