Whatever floats your boat
FROM luxury yachts to dinghies with rattling outboard motors.
It didn’t matter which kind of craft you had moored at Wavebreak Island for Australia Day yesterday as long as you were one of the hundreds of people having a ball.
The egalitarian vibe was on perfect show when deckhands on a yacht owned by a “private Gold Coast businessman” allowed a dozen revellers to take over a slippery slide which ran off the side of the boat on the northern side of the island.
“We were just watching the slide from another boat, so we swam over to see if we could use it, it’s pretty fun,” said Hope Island teen Abbie Leahy.
Nearby, on an old Bertram, Karen Georgacopoulos and Mark Godfrey said they had enough supplies on board to last until today.
“We got here early in the morning and we’ve got enough lamb chops, potatoes and beer to last until tomorrow morning,” Mr Godfrey said.
But the real party was at the anchorage on the south western corner of the island where hundreds of boats jostled to find a good spot to set up for the day.
The Wilkinson, Cox, Coyle and Hicks families managed to snare a cracker spot in the thick of the party.
“Mate, it’s just great, we love it here,” Shane Wilkinson said. “We got the boat here yesterday and turned up early this morning.”
As the day wore on, cans of alcohol and cigarette butts began to float by.
“I’ve picked up 50 bottles to put in the rubbish bins already,” said a Frenchman who did not wish to be named.
“In my country it’s so dirty and it's so clean here, why would people throw rubbish into the water?”