Australia: Sailing around the Whitsundays Luckily my wife and I weren't aware of such pitfalls when we accepted an absurdly generous offer from our Aussie chum David Archibald of a week's cruising with five of his mates. All we knew were that the Whitsundays are widely held to be the most paradisal destination in all of Oz: crystal blue waters; pristine, pine-forested tropical islands; coral reefs; white beaches made of silica so fine you can polish your jewellery with it... And you know what? Everything they say is true. The Whitsundays really are like a cliché from the old Bounty advert: "They came in search of paradise..." Every night, as we sipped our cocktails and watched the sun set over yet another secluded bay on yet another Robinson Crusoe island, we'd spend at least half an hour just congratulating one another on the sheer total perfection of it all and our good fortune in being there. In an atmosphere as mellow as that, silly rows about music don't last long. Soon, poor wounded Brett and I were sinking our tinnies once more like the very best of mates. There are lots of ways to do the Whitsundays, an island group off the coast of Queensland, on roughly the same tropical latitude as Hawaii . The budget option is to hop between the islands" several rudimentary campsites (watch out for death adders!) and the luxury option is to spend a week or so being fawned over in one of the mega-expensive resort hotels. But the best way is to do what we did and hire a sailing boat. Though the living arrangements may be a bit basic, it means you don't have to wait for a ferry or a flying boat to take you to sites such as Whitehaven beach: they're there in front of you already the moment you crawl out of your cabin and take your first morning dip. A word about sharks. My wife was very worried about these; I was less so. For one thing, I was aware that the statistics were in our favour: attacks on humans here average about one a decade . And for another, I knew the risks could be decreased by observing basic shark discipline - not chucking chicken bones overboard and not fishing at the same time as you're swimming. Oh, and not making a big splash as you hit the water: bulls, especially, find that very attractive. Far more worrying a menace is the dreaded irukandji jellyfish. It's transparent and tiny - less than a cubic inch in size - and when it stings you, it feels no more painful than a bee. Only half an hour or more later do the serious symptoms begin to manifest themselves: vomiting, sweating, headache, agitation, rapid heart rate and very high blood pressure. If not treated - and you'll definitely have to go to hospital - it can be fatal. Ask locally before swimming At some times of year the danger is higher than at others: the best thing is to ask locally. When we went, in late April, the threat was sufficiently low for us to risk swimming in nothing but our bathing costumes. But if you're worried (for the risk is never zero) you can always hire a hooded, one-piece body stocking to protect you. It will certainly cost you less than the hundreds of dollars you'd have to fork out for emergency medical treatment. Other than that - and the deadly stone fish and the deadly death adders and the deadly sea snakes - the wildlife around these parts is very friendly. In one bay, a cockatoo swooped down from the forest - past a pair of sea eagles - to perform acrobatics on our rigging in return for food. Of course, it being mostly a nature reserve, you're not supposed to do this sort of thing. But it's pretty hard to resist - as it is when you go to one of the reefs where the batfish live. These are silvery, charming disc-shaped fish about a foot in diameter which will happily nibble bread from your hand. Lucky for them, they are completely inedible: otherwise, being that friendly, they would surely have gone the way of the dodo by now. Sometimes, they'll be joined by other species: an inquisitive tuna fish, say; or a fat Maori wrasse (with its distinctive humped forehead). Though the diving in the Whitsundays isn't quite on a par with the (nearby) Great Barrier Reef, it does come pretty close, with most of the main coral varieties (brain, staghorn etc), all the colourful reef fish (clowns, triggers, angels...) and three varieties of turtle. Those of you who've got this far hoping to hear a bit of yachtie porn involving cleats, sheets, spinnakers and what have you are going to be disappointed. I'm proud to say that, we had in our skipper David Archibald a man of resolute principle who would never exploit the world's precious and scarce wind resources when he could be burning up diesel instead. This meant plenty more time available to do all the things we would rather be doing than hauling on ropes: reading, mixing cocktails, eating long lunches, looking for more batfish and cockatoos to feed and exploring little islands so unspoilt you feel rather as Captain Cook must have done when he discovered them on his first voyage around Australia in 1770. Except he got the day wrong: when he sailed through the place he named Whitsunday passage it was actually Whit Monday. Be warned, the Whitsundays are a hell of a long way for a Briton to travel for a sailing holiday: roughly 24 hours to Brisbane, then several more waiting and travelling before you get to the Whitsundays" main hub, Hamilton Island. Also be very aware: good weather is by no means guaranteed. We went at the end of April and the weather was glorious, but had we gone at the same time the previous year it would have been non-stop tropical rain. Under circumstances like that, it is not certain my little dispute with Brett would have resolved itself quite so amicably. There can't be many other nations that produce quite such easy-going travel companions. But I'm not sure I'd like to test that tolerance when confined below decks for a week and lashed with sheet rain. Even Aussies have their limits. For more information on prices, packages and operators for sailing trips in the Whitsundays, as well as other Queensland ideas, see australia.com.