Bareboating Whitsundays: A million-star experience on a floating hotel

By Sheriden Rhodes
Updated June 9 2017 - 4:11pm, first published 4:02pm
Bareboating Whitsundays: A million-star experience on a floating hotel
Bareboating Whitsundays: A million-star experience on a floating hotel

It doesn't take long after we've untied the ropes, pushed off from the marina and thrown caution to the wind, to feel like we've joined some kind of private club. The bareboating club that is. Sure, I'd seen the bareboating brigade before; tied up at marinas or anchored in secluded inlets – kids leaping into the water, yachties hanging up wet weather gear to dry – but I'd never given them more than a passing thought. Now we are one of them. For the uninitiated, bareboating is chartering a yacht, catamaran or launch, for a nautical adventure. And our destination is as good as it gets when it comes to boating – the 74 magical islands that make up the Whitsundays, stretching from Mackay to the south and Bowen to the north.