Whitsunday Island Fever

I leave Sydney in the late afternoon to head for Mackay (pronounced Muh-kai). I land in their tiny airport at about 8:30pm. I have to catch the Greyhound from here to Airley beach in order to take a boat out to the islands the following morning. They close the airport and imply that I should the three hours outside for my bus. After waiting outside for about thirty minutes, this kid that works for the airport comes out to ask if I'm okay. I tell him I'm just fine and waiting for my bus. He decides to invite me back in to the airport to call Greyhound to see if they're stopping at the airport. Come to find out, they're not. Oops. He's so nice that he agrees to take me since he's headed that way. We hop into his "ute" (pronounced yoot), which is pretty much an El Camino, and he drives me fifteen minutes into his middle-of-nowhere town. He tells me his girlfriend is spending three months in Switzerland and that he misses her quite a bit. We discuss life in Mackay and have casual conversation. When he drops me off in town he asks if I would like to swap numbers just in case I get stranded. I'm so grateful that he's looking out for me. I wait at the stop for an hour-and-a-half and finally the bus comes. I pass out and wake up two hours later in Mackay where I will stay for the night. I arrive at two in the morning when everyone is absolutely wasted. There's even a guy in his mid-tewnties who has peed in his pants. I definitely missed the party.
The next morning I'm off to the Whitsunday Islands by ferry. When I arrive I'm so excited to party it up on this island. Nobody is there. It's like a ghost backpackers resort. Oh no. I spend the evening alone and the next evening too. The day is spent by the pool, but I can only spend so much time by the pool.
I see a girl a little older than me dive into the pool. I've seen this girl alone at the resort a couple of times so I decide to go chat her up. I've never had to pick up another girl before. How do I do this? I walk up to her as she is lounging in the sun, and ask her if she's travelling alone. I then ask her if I may join her in a sunbathing session.
Her name is Jenniffer. She is an artist from Holland, and relaxing alone for the week. To be perfectly honest she really has no choice of wheather or not she's alone since this island is completely empty. She says the first night she was here she was the only guset, so she hung out with the staff.
That night we drink wine outside as the sun sets and chat for a long time. She invites me to stay with her when I come to Amsterdam in October. We walk back to our different rooms, and agree that we'll see each other in the fall.
The next day she is gone, as she had told me she would be. It's my last day on the island, and I'm alone again relaxing by the pool when these three Australian guys call me over to come have a beer with them. They've been fishing out on their boat all morning, and stopped in for a beer. We sit and chat for an hour, and then they decide they want to stay on the island for the night but they don't have any money with them. They say they have to go back to the mainland to get Mark's wallet. Next thing I know I'm racing over the ocean in a tiny motor boat hanging on for dear life. This guy is driving the boat like a maniac, and we're having the best time. We're crashing over waves and sometimes leaving the water's surface completely. They keep yelling "ARE YOU ALIVE!?" not questioning if they've killed me, but rather making sure that I feel more alive than ever before. We scream and cheer our whole way there and back, singing pirate songs "We're going this way that way foreword and backward upon the Irish sea!" as the guy steering the motor screams like a mad man. We go back to the island for the night and drink to a really good time. I wave goodbye to them the next morning at the end of the pier wrapped in a billowing white sheet for warmth as the palm trees bow in praise to the orange glow of the new day. What a life...