Expectations are a funny thing. They can mold and shape your opinion on anything. Whether they are high or low, expectations almost always find themselves to be vastly different from the realities of life. I couldn’t tell you what I expected this past week as I flew from Brisbane north to Proserpine. Hell, I’d only booked the trip five days before.
All I knew was that Proserpine led to Arlie Beach and Arlie beach would get me to a magical group of seventy four islands called the Whitsundays. As I sat on the bus to Arlie beach, I was expecting the classic island retreat where I would sit under a cabana on the beach, sip a corona and waste the day away.
After an uneventful bus ride, we pulled into town, driving past deserted beaches (granted, it was middle of jellyfish season), countless hostels, and an endless drove of backpackers. My expectations of an island retreat were shattered, but I couldn’t help but feel like I fit in. I was a backpacker of sorts, and judging by the look on most of these peoples faces, they had about as little of an idea of what to do in Arlie beach and the Whitsundays as I did.
We got settled in our hostel. It was exactly what you would expect, a bit dated. Foreigners filled every bed in rooms with an indistinguishable odor that only made me think of the basement of an old apartment building I worked in in Jackson, Mississippi.
From there, we did what any sensible backpacker does; we went to ask the front desk of the hostel what the best things to do in town were. A bored looking man in a sweat stained polo and thick rimmed glasses looked at us from behind the desk.
“Boys,” he said. “There’s only two things to do in this town, drink and sail.”
Little did we know he had just offered us perhaps the best words of wisdom we could have received that week. 
After a few more words and an offer of an outrageously overpriced sailing trip, we went out in search of the cheapest way for us to see the islands on a sailboat. We walked for a long while, speaking to what seemed like an endless number of travel agents, each of them giving us some exorbitant price for a lavish experience on a beautiful boat.
Of course, this would have been nice, but we were poor college students. Exorbitant, lavish and beautiful are some of the last words you could use to describe us.
Finally, we walked into the last agent and made our inquiries. It didn’t look good… until about halfway through our meeting the phone rang and the man on the other end of the line gave the agent, who was already an overly excited man, some news that sent him into a frenzy. I swear he was speaking a different language but at one point, I heard the words “cancellation,” “three days two nights,” and “half price.” That was enough for me. Within five minutes I was booked on a boat called the Habibi to sail the Whitsunday islands for three days. We knew the name of the boat, where to meet and nothing else.
Proud of his accomplishment, the travel agent promptly pulled a six pack of corona from somewhere under his desk and we enjoyed something that was half celebration of a job well done and half anticipation of what was to come.
The next thing I knew, I was sitting with only one person I knew on the deck of a boat sailing over rough seas rising and falling like an elevator every few seconds. Thank god I don’t get seasick. After a few brief conversations with several of the other 24 people onboard, my travel companion and I came to learn that we were the only Americans on an Australian boat populated entirely with Europeans.
Again, our expectations were shattered.
Now you would think that being on a boat in these island we would have some grand adventure on the high seas filled with adventure and intrigue. The truth behind why this trip was so special was far simpler than that. It was the people.
Being stuck in an area no bigger than a small apartment with nothing but open water and uninhabited islands ensures that whether you like it or not, you will get very close with the people you are with.
Fortunately for me, I liked it. I became friends with all manner of people. There was a lone Brit who constantly poked fun at Americans, a Swede who may not have been able to handle her liquor as much as she led on, and a German who, despite the language barrier, made for some of the best company that I have had in years. All of them made me laugh, love and appreciate everything about them.
Most of all, they showed me just how small I really am in the grand scope of things. Prior to this week, I had always been so close to America. Whether I was in the states or traveling with a group of them, Americans had shaped my perspective on the world and what kind of people are in it. So, it was there, on that boat, surrounded by foreigners and the ocean that I learned how different the rest of the world really can be.
While the people and the relationships meant the most, the natural beauty of the Whitsundays was not lost on me. I was not so blinded that I was unaffected by the magic of Whitehaven beach. I can say in full honesty that this beach, the number three beach in the entire world, is completely unlike any beach, or any place, in the entire world.
As we crested the peak of the island, the first thing we saw was the magical Hill inlet that splits Whitehaven beach down the middle. Hill inlet looks like something out of a surrealist painting. The bleach white sand folds itself into the crystal blue water presenting a visual that looks something like a few drops of blue dye spreading into a glass of milk. We made a b line for the beach after that. The anticipation of those white sands under our feet was almost unbearable.
As I set foot on this beach I was glad I had a bit of an expectation for the first time. We had heard about the sands of Whitehaven since we arrived in Arlie. It was said to be the finest sand in the world, capable of exfoliating skin, polishing jewelry, and even cleaning teeth. Even hearing all of this could not set my expectations high enough for what that sand looked and felt like. It was like walking on a cloud, both in look and feel. A handful of wet sand flowed through your fingers like a gel to seamlessly rejoin the white mass that it came from. This sensory overload would have left me sitting on that beach for weeks had the boat not beckoned me back.
The rest of the trip blurred past as we strengthened relationships and learned more about each other. There is nothing like a conversation at sunrise for two nights in a row to bring people together. When we all parted ways after all of those days, it became more like leaving a family behind than a bunch of strangers. I would miss these people and although we had exchanged contact info or had expectations to meet up later in our travels, I could not help but wish that we could simply enjoy each others company in that island paradise, without any expectations, for just a little longer.
