A week in the Whitsundays: Airlie Beach to Hamilton Island

Round to the south side of Hook Island and into Nara Inlet, a drowned river valley that runs two kilometres into the island and stays flat calm in any wind. Take the tender to the head of the inlet for the Ngaro rock paintings in the cave, and the waterfalls if it has rained. Paddleboards in the afternoon, and the quietest night of the week.

• Ngaro rock art at the head of the inlet
• Flat water for the paddleboards
• The quietest anchorage in the islands

Up early for Butterfly Bay and Manta Ray Bay on Hook's north coast. The crew take a mooring at dawn, before the tour boats, for fringing reef in three metres of water, Maori wrasse the size of a dog and turtles most mornings. Then Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman by eight, gone by ten. If the tide is low at lunch, Langford Spit comes up out of the sea with reef on both sides, and lunch goes on the sand with the tender beached and the yacht a hundred metres off. Sunset anchored off Langford Reef is the picture people take home.

• Butterfly Bay at dawn, before the tour boats
• Blue Pearl Bay by eight
• Lunch on Langford Spit at low tide
• Sunset off Langford Reef

The day boats go to the Hardy Reef pontoon. We go to Bait Reef, thirty miles out, and the Stepping Stones: a line of coral bommies with twenty metres of visibility and nobody on them. The yacht anchors in the lagoon for the day, the divers go down and everyone else snorkels from the tender. It needs a calm forecast and a captain who knows the entry, which is why it sits mid-week, where the weather window can move. Mid-afternoon, back inside to Tongue Bay for the night, so Whitehaven starts at first light.

• Bait Reef and the Stepping Stones
• Twenty metres of visibility
• The night at Tongue Bay, ready for Whitehaven

Whitehaven always gets a whole day, never a last morning. Tender ashore at first light and walk the lookout track to Hill Inlet before the first day boat arrives around nine; the swirl is best two hours either side of low tide, so the crew fix the morning around the tide table. Then the beach itself, seven kilometres of silica sand that squeaks underfoot, and the beach picnic at low tide. For the one flight worth taking on a boat holiday, a seaplane or helicopter does a lap of Heart Reef and lands you back on Whitehaven. In the afternoon, across the passage to Chalkies on Haslewood Island: the same sand with almost nobody on it, the crew's barbecue at five, and Whitehaven turning pink across the water.

• Hill Inlet from the lookout at first light
• The beach picnic at low tide
• Heart Reef by air, landing on Whitehaven
• Chalkies and the crew's barbecue at five

South to Neck Bay on Shaw Island, a secluded bay of mangroves and reef flats with rays and turtles in the shallows, and a last swim with nobody else in it. Then across to Hamilton Island to berth for the night. A golf buggy up One Tree Hill for sunset, a drink at the top and the whole group looking west as the sun goes, then down to Bommie at the yacht club for dinner: the best in the islands, with the marina lights below.

• Neck Bay's reef flats, rays and turtles
• One Tree Hill at sunset
• Dinner at Bommie, booked by us

Breakfast on board and step off at the marina. If the flight allows, walk up Passage Peak for a last look over the whole week, or take lunch at Pebble Beach at qualia, looking north over the passage to Hayman; the crew arrange it. Hamilton Island's airport is a few minutes from the marina, and Sydney is two and a half hours away.

• Passage Peak for the last view
• Lunch at Pebble Beach at qualia
• Two and a half hours to Sydney