James Cook was smitten by the Whitsundays 214 years before the inaugural Hamilton Island Race Week set sail in 1984.

500 BC– Archaeologists believe the Whitsundays were first populated by the Indigenous Ngaro people 2500 years ago (7000 years after they settled the mainland). Middens indicate their diet consisted of small whales, turtles, shellfish, snakes, lizards and birds.
1770 – Cook’s Endeavour sails through the archipelago on Whit Sunday on its way north from Botany Bay. Cook names his route the Whitsunday Passage.
1975 – Developer Keith Williams (the water ski champion who pioneered Sea World on the Gold Coast) buys Hamilton Island, recognising its tourism potential. Resort construction began in 1982.
1984 – Inaugural Hamilton Island Race Week.
1996 – Hamilton Island becomes a public company, with Bankers Trust as main shareholder.
2003 – The Oatley family acquires Hamilton Island.
2007 – Australia’s first six-star gated resort, qualia, opens overlooking a private beach on the undeveloped north side of the island. The $100 million adults-only resort, with just 60 guest pavilions, has been enjoyed by Oprah Winfrey, Taylor Swift and Johnny Depp.

2009 – Designed by Walter Barda, the island’s whale-tailed Yacht Club opens to become the focus of many Race Week events. Leonardo DiCaprio is one of many celebrities who have stayed with their children at the gated Yacht Club Villas.
2009 – Hamilton Island Golf Club (a five-minute ferry ride away on neighbouring Dent Island) opens the same year with an 18-hole championship course designed by five-time British Open winner Peter Thomson.
2017 – Cyclone Debbie devastates the Whitsunday coast, but Hamilton Island reopens within a week.
August 2, 2019 – Inaugural Brisbane to Hamilton Island Yacht Race begins, delivering competitors in time for the Airlie Beach and Hamilton Island Race Weeks.