Two Fish – “See You in Paradise, MoFos”

When I close my eyes and go back, my stomach instantly clenches in that nostalgic, homesick feeling sort of way. It’s hard being 21-years-old and having an awful feeling that it just might be all down hill from here.

After spending twelve hours on an overnight bus not sleeping, but instead having a huge bus party that included the man we entrusted with our lives and safety, running around the bus stark naked, and plenty of pictures surfacing of people passed out with pineapples all over them, we arrived at a hostel and were told to drop our suitcases and pack a bag for three days. We quickly all stuffed some clothes into backpacks and followed Chappy down to a beautiful hotel and out onto its pier where three motorized balls of sunshine sat on the most transparent glassy ocean I’ve ever seen, beckoning for us to climb on board.

Chappy pushed past us in his homemade cutoff denim shorts, his oversized straw hat, toting his suitcase behind him ever so daintily. He nonchalantly shouted over his shoulder back to us,

“See you in paradise, MoFos!” before dipping down into our newest forms of transportation.

We took off in the three speedboats, whipping around, swerving in and out of one another, flying over waves as the shaggy seaweed colored mountains of the stunning Whitsunday islands with snow-like sand surrounded us. The boats jetted around, zigzagging about in the ocean until the mountains split, opening up to a beach, and suddenly the 60 of us were pulling up on water to our very own private and personal paradise called Long Island Resort. We actually had to climb down a ladder into the water to bring our bags up to our hotel. This couldn’t be real life; this trip was already exactly what I’d always hoped for in a spring break trip.

I hate ever appearing like a standard college student. Even more so, I hate appearing like a stereotypical American. Maybe even worse than that, I hate the hurricane of destruction that is all too common of the drunk American male college student. I guess what I’m trying to say is… this resort was way too nice for 60 college students and Extreme Adventures and the manager of the hotel should have known better. Extreme Adventures had been banned from this hotel for five years; our year was the first to return. It’s safe to say we will also be the last.

After dropping off our bags we all ran back to the boats which took us snorkeling around reefs where we all lazily floated on neon noodles and looked down at the rainbow sea of fish. From there the boats took us to our next stop where the captains took us up a long, winding path which led us right out to an overlook of the number six ranked most beautiful beach in the world, Whitehaven Beach.

To be honest, I’ve never seen anything quite like Whitehaven, and I’m completely floored that there are five beaches ranked above it. The sand is actually pure bleached-cotton white which Chappy informed me is because the sand is 98% silica. This is the sort of beach that’s photographed and printed on posters on a mass scale that have “paradise” written underneath, or that people will set as their computer screen backgrounds.  We were literally standing inside of one of those posters looking at what every picture and painting has always told us is the definition of paradise. We had arrived, and it only got sweeter when Chappy told us we were actually going onto the beach.

Once down on Whitehaven, which was completely deserted except for our crew, we all enjoyed lunch and goon down by the water. Almost immediately after dinner the goon race competitions began which involved all of us spinning in circles and running in a relay. Injuries were imminent and inevitable. Casey and I also came up with having goon sack tosses, similar to an egg toss, in honor of Easter being that day.

After a while we all piled back onto our boats and were delivered back to our hotel where we all spilled off, going to sleep in our rooms, in other people’s rooms and on the beach.

I woke up a couple hours later to the pumpkin sun setting on the water and wandered back to the hotel go to dinner, which was a strange scene to say the least. Some of our group managed to end up at day one’s dinner, half of the crew didn’t even make it to dinner, out of no where Calvin played beautiful classical music on the piano, someone threw an entire pig’s head on Chappy’s plate, the boys tried to take an entire cheesecake with them... It was only the first night in Long Island and the ruckus was already foreshadowing the hand delivery of trouble in paradise.

After a very short night at the hotel’s bar right on the beach, we woke up to a free day on Long Island. We moseyed on out to the beach and pool at our leisure. Tubing, kayaking and jet skiing was available to those looking for an action-packed day. The majority of our crew gathered more around the pool by the huge sound system and once again, the goon bags came out. We all just swam and danced and hung out in the pool all day, soaking up the ideal image of what a spring break should be, feeding off each other’s energy and attempting to get as bronzed as possible. 

In the late afternoon we gathered by the beach bar and covered our hands in an applesauce-like substance for the bird feeding. Suddenly, dozens and dozens of Kelly green parakeets flocked over to cover all of our arms and dance around on our heads. It was hilarious and kind of frightening at the same time, especially for Casey who has the biggest phobia of birds.

That night we all headed to the “discoteca” where the detrimental actions of the nighttime began. We pinned down one Canadian boy while people applied mascara on to his eyes. Phil walked around in a penguin suit the entire night. We all danced the night away. Chappy informed us that his mother, Fritha, is the gardener of the year in Australia, and that his middle name is “Tom.” Not Thomas, just Tom. But by the time the sun came up over the Whitsunday Islands, we were facing an $1,800 damage fee, the charges ranging from suntan lotion being put in all the locks on the doors to all the exit signs being knocked down, all of which could be traced back to two individuals.

We left first thing in the morning on a beautiful sailboat, $1,800 poorer, literally the Adam and Eve’s of the Whitsunday Islands ruining paradise for all future One Fish Two Fishers who will never experience Long Island Resort due to the perma-ban placed on Extreme Adventures. More than anything the damage, turmoil, ruckus, chaos and destruction caused reminds me of my Grandpop always saying,

“This is why we can’t have nice things.”