What could be scarier than skydiving you’re thinking? Well, after spending a weekend jumping out of a plane and jumping on the back of a jet ski on rough sea at Airlie Beach I am here to tell you it was the jet ski ride!

Airlie Beach would have to be one of the most beautiful coastal towns in Queensland. It will forever be the only one I have seen freefalling out of a plane and never again will you find me on the back of a jet ski off the Coral Sea Marina.

It was a lovely sunny day when we headed out to jump on a jet ski tour with ‘Whitsunday Jetski Tours’. The staff were all wonderful and the facility was huge with an office, a room to go through the safety side of things and of course quite a few jet skis tied up to the marina.

I was feeling excited, I enjoyed being on the jet ski on a dam so really how different would it be out at sea?

First things first was listening to the safety briefing. What not to do, what to do, where we were going and what we would see on our tour which included the possibility of seeing some turtles. The briefing went for an hour and the tour was set for an hour and a half.

Morgan, my partner, drove the jet ski and I was the passenger. We got on and headed out to the open water one by one in single file. There was plenty drilled into us during the safety briefing about keeping a certain distance between jet skis and signaling each other when we were stopping.

I was feeling okay until we picked up speed and I was holding onto Morgan for dear life. The sea was not as calm as I hoped it would be and every wave we went over felt like I was going to go flying off into the sea!

We had a couple of breaks during the tour to have a look at the beautiful scenery and allow time for everyone to catch up and for a photo or two.

Most of the time when we were racing over the waves I was buried in Morgan’s back just waiting for it to be over.

Unfortunately, there weren’t any turtles for us to have a look at on our trip but more often than not they are swimming around not too far from shore near Pigeon Island.

For the last part of our journey I had a go at driving the jet ski… it wasn’t too hard but I was going so slow because I was scared of the waves. It’s safe to say we fell very behind the pack and it wasn’t long until an exasperated Morgan took back the controls and quickly caught us back up with the tour group.

Now if you’re like me and you’re not into bumping around on rough seas then maybe give this tour a miss. But if you’re like Morgan and enjoy the thrill of flying over waves at crazy speeds then this is the adventure for you.

For more info and to book: https://jetskitour.com.au/