Wildlife or not - Monkey Mia

At Australia's west coast, we went to Shark Bay. This area is known for its superb and approachable wild life. Monkey Mia, at the north of the peninsula, is famous for the dolphin encounters. 

On our way there, we stopped to look at ancient life forms, called stromatolites. These are what kickstarted life on Earth as we know it. And they still exist! To the untrained eye (like mine) they look just like rocks, but these are actually organisms, consisting of several strands of clustered bacteria. I think it's pretty cool to have seen them.

Stromatolites

We then went on to Monkey Mia, basically the name of the resort. The Monkey Mia Reserve is a little area, surrounding the resort. You can't acces the resort without entering the reserve, thus you'll always have to pay the extra acces fee.
We parked our campervan at the campground, went to the beach. On the beach were several pelicans, seemingly undisturbed by the humans around them. We had fun watching them (as you can read in this previous post). Just off the beach, we saw several dolphins foraging in the water, pretty amazing.

Pelican ruffling its feathers

The next morning we went to the beach for the 'Dolphin Experience'. This is what everyone comes for. Wild dolphins being hand fed by people. According to all the brochures is has been the natural behaviour of the dolphins to visit this spot for years. Now the reason the dolphins started coming to this spot was actually human behaviour: fisherman throwing them leftover catch. I wouldn't classify that at 'naturally showed up', but to each his own. The Department of Parks & Wildlife decided to regulate dolphin encounters through the Dolphin Experience.
I'm still not sure whether I like it. 

Dolphin waiting for a handout

Based on the information DoPW give, they try to do it in a way that is least disruptive to natural behaviour do the dolphins. They feed only 5 selected individuals, the other dolphins never get handouts to minimise contact. They give no more than 10% of their daily intake, forcing them to continue hunting. The interaction is 20 minutes so mothers go back to calves, all spectators must stay out of the water, no touching, etc.
But feeding wild animals, fully capable of fending for themselves... 

Pelican trying to snatch a handout

But then again, before DoPW stepped in, the human-dolphin interaction went wild, calves starved due to neglect (a death rate as high as 90%!) and several dolphins attacks occurred. At least it is regulated now. And on the day we went, it took a full 2 hours for the first dolphin to show up. So they don't seem too dependent on the handouts. The  funniest thing at the whole experience though was watching the pelican trying to wiggle himself in between dolphin and fish bucket. He got more attention then any dolphin I saw. 

Shell Beach

After lazing another day at the beach, and a boat tour (which wasn't that good, but we did to see dugongs!) it was time to move on. Driving off the peninsula we made a final stop at Shell Beach.
In the sunshine it looked as bright white as any tropical beach. But a closer look reveals it isn't sand, but millions and trillions of tiny cockles. These live in the super saline water, where most life doesn't survive. (A sand bank allows the tide to go in, but not to go out, the water vaporises, and the remaining water becomes ever salter.) As the cockles die, they wash up, and form this beach.

Shell Beach 

Memorable marine encounters - Coral Bay

The small coastal towns at the Ningaloo are all geared towards water related activities. Think surfing, whale watching in season, and whalesharks! (Which is March to July)

Another must-do is diving or snorkelling. With the fringing reef so close to the coast it's a waste not to. Of course we've done some in Exmouth, but we also went a little further south to tiny Coral Bay. (2 campsites, 1 hotel and 8 shops, of which 7 tourism related.) 

But Coral Bay has something extra special: a resident manta ray population! To be more exact, there are a row resident mantas, and many seasonal and visiting ones. But it is one of the few places where you are almost guaranteed to see them year round. A chance not to miss.

Exploring Ashos Gap

There are many manta ray snorkel tours on offer, but since there's just one dive shop in Coral Bay, our choice was an easy one. A full day tour, with a dive in the morning and afternoon, and a manta interaction snorkel in between. If the mantas felt like it. Because the previous week they hadn't shown up for five consecutive days... But, if you don't try, you're sure not to see them. 

Later that afternoon, the dive shop owner told us our tour might not happen, since the other couple that had signed up, had cancelled. And they had a 4 person minimum. After a few phonecalls that evening it was certain: no tour tomorrow. So we spent an extra lazy day at Coral Bay and went one day later: on a fully booked tour. 

After the usual morning fitting sessions (who doesn't love a cold damp wetsuit in the morning?) that go with dive tours, we were ready to go. And can I just add that I simply love Australian sizing? I easily fit a S, sometimes even XS suit, always nice when (un)dressing in front of complete strangers. 

Blue spotted stingray 

On board were 10 divers divided in 2 groups. We were happy to be in the 'experienced' group, which made for lovely relaxed dives. We all had about the same pace and mindset. Keeping an eye out for each other, but wandering off a bit it you saw something interesting. As opposed to the 'less experienced'. When we saw them, the six of 'em were huddled in a tight knit, condensed shoal following the leader.

The first dive was around a clusters of coral bommies not far of shore. We saw loads of tiny fish, some bigger ones like potato cod, little cleaning fish doing their job, a few blue spotted stingrays hiding underneath the corals, nudibranches, sea worms, a moray eel, clown fish, and loads more.

It's pretty cool to see how every coral and anemone has its own species of related fish. Two coals right next to each other, but slightly different, both have tiny fish on them, but slightly different. 

The underwater landscape was really nice too.

First look at a wild manta ever

When we surfaced after a shallow 55minutes dive, it was time to head to Batemans Bay. In search of mantas. 

On our way there we got some instructions on what to do and what not. In the mean time a spotter plane was on the lookout for mantas to optimise our chances of seeing one.

We were divided into two groups, and instructed to sit on the rear of the boat, on the platforms. Fins and mask on and snorkel in. The boat would drop us in the manta's expected path. At the crew's 'go, go go' we slid in the water, moments before we saw th manta underneath us! 

How utterly, extremely cool was that! 

Just a few meters below us was the his magnificent creature, gently flapping its wings. They really do fly. 

Showing its belly just before flying away

We swam with it, until some of our group got slower. That was when our guide gave the cue to stop swimming. Group two was then dropped, after which we were picked up again. As soon as the other group stopped swimming we were again dropped in. The second time in, the manta swam sideways for a bit. 
Another boat in the vicinity had had no luck yet with finding a manta, so our skipper decided that we'd pull back for a bit to give them a go. We looked on, and to be honest, our tour looked far more professional in getting everyone in and out of the water. And it was apparent that we had some stronger swimmers on board. Because it does take some effort to keep up with a feeding manta! 

We then did our third and final run. Most of us stopped swimming when directed, but one of our group continued... Rodie stealthily joined group 2 for an extra long manta swim! Afterwards we had lunch aboard, and went to the next diving spot. During that trip we saw even more wildlife: Dolphins, several turtles surfacing to breathe, stingrays, and even a humpback with calf! 

Giant cuttlefish

After that superb manta swin, we really didn't care that much about our second dive, but happily went in. What a surprise was that second site! Ashos Gap are two interconnected bommies, with a cleaning station at it. Basically it is one massive coral garden. We stayed under for an hour, and swam above coral that enitire time.

Some really good marine life too. A lovely green turtle (I never get tired of those!), a distant grey reef shark, some barracudas, giant clams, and a really big giant cuttlefish. This one was about 30cm, and prettily changing colours as we stayed with it for a bit. 

The number of small fish was incredible, and the coral itself was more diverse than at the first spot. Really. Opal was that you could actually see some of the coral 'breathe'.

Yep, that was a pretty amazing day! 

Green turtle

Turquoise drift - Exmouth

After our Broome adventures, we visited inland Karijini NP, which was stunning. Then we headed back to the blue waters. Or should I say turquoise waters? It was time to finally visit the Ningaloo Reef!

Turquoise Bay beach

The Ningaloo reef sits on Australia's west coast, and is far less visited than the Great Barrier Reef. But supposedly at least as beautiful. This is one of the main reason we really wanted to see Ozzie's west coast. 

One of the really good things about the Ningaloo is, that it is a fringing reef, so it really close to the coast. (The GBR is always at least a boat ride away. ) We decided to start in Exmouth, on its northern end.

Turquoise Bay Area corals just under water

When we arrived in Exmouth, we expected a bit of a resort town, but nothing like that. It's a sleepy village, though very expensive at it. 

Exmouth Bay is known for its whale shark swims (but the season ends in July), whale watching (but we just did that a few days before in Broome) and of course diving! 

Happily eating fish

We booked a 2 dive boat tour with Exmouth dive centre. Though is wasn't very well organised, the dives themselves were really nice. We saw an olive sea snake on both dives, good sized potato cods and many nudibranches. On the second dive we were caught in shoals of millions of glass fish. They're tiny, but they block sight and light. But most special about these dives? Whale song! The whole time we heard them. Magical really.

On our way back to the marina, we even saw a few, just in front of our boat! Mama was showing off, breaching for us, and the calf tried to imitate her. But he needs to practice a bit more, but we know now that humpbacks do swim belly up...

Abundance 

After these dives, we decided we simply needed an underwater camera. So what do you do then? You guessed right: we now own a go pro. Bought in the most expensive place we've seen them so far. Because the next dive will hopefully include manta rays, and if it does we have to record that. But first: practise how to use it. 

The Cape Range NP just west of Exmouth provide the perfect opportunity for that. Here you can snorkel right over the reef, right off the beach.

Cabbage corals at the drift 

Our first snorkel was in Turquoise Bay. We started in the 'safe' area, the little bay, just 2 meters deep without currents. It was pretty, with massive corals and many fish, we even saw a turtle! The corals had such pretty colours in these shallow waters. 

But, maybe because of the strong winds, the water was quite murky. 

Look at those colours

Our next snorkel was at the 'advanced' area: theTurquoise Bay drift snorkel. You enter the water on the southern end, then let the current carry you over the bommies. You have to get out of the current in time, before it sweeps you through the gap into the ocean. 

This snorkel the water was a lot clearer, but we drifted very quickly, probably because off the string winds. But a lovely Go Pro practice snorkel, with pics to prove it! 

Shoal of fish right at the beach