The day has arrived. We’d planned this trip for months and it was rescheduled when we arrived due to the unexpected high winds across the peninsula and we were lucky to get two places that were free on Sunday, our last free day. Chris picked us up - he is one of the crew and also happens to be an underwater photographer who uses Canon so we had plenty to talk about (even through he only has a Canon 70D!) and I got a chance to look at his expensive underwater housing.
The tour was for ten people only and the boat was smaller than yesterday. At least the start was not quite so early as the boat ramp was on the Ningaloo Peninsula rather than down at Coral Bay.
We were ferried by a little boat to the rather luxurious boat complete with double bedroom and shower! Our aim was to try and swim with humpback whales. This is only the second year that Australia has allowed swimming with humpbacks as between 38-42,000 come up to the warmer waters from the Antarctic to have their calves and it is very tightly regulated to ensure the whales are not disturbed and this is the only place this activity takes place in Australia.
Our boat had a dedicated spotter plane to find the whale but this did not go up before 10.15am... we were in the water looking for Whale Sharks and then Chris started frantically pointing under water. I could not see anything but a deep blue then all of a sudden a huge female humpback with her calf swimming underneath just swam literally within 5-10 metres of where I was snorkeling. I have never seen anything like it, I thought I was in a David Attenborough program. This was in fact the only humpback we got to swim with on the day and the calf was far smaller than people are allowed to swim with (should be 2/3's of the length of the adult) and we were much closer than we should have been but as the whale came up to us there was little we could do! This photo IS NOT taken by me but as this is the view I had when next to Chris who was photographing I wanted to post it. The image is by Chris the photographer for the Live Ningaloo Tour (watermarked)
After that we had 4 separate snorkels attempting to keep up with Whale Sharks. We were lucky as they normally have migrated by now but these had obviously forgotten to check their calendars. Again we had instructions of how to observe them, all keep in a line behind them. We had to swim so fast to keep up as they change direction when feeding. I was struggling to keep when the Whale Shark suddenly turned towards me... I was supposed to drop back towards the other snorkelers but as there were some precocious boys who had been getting a lot of special treatment, I must have 'forgotten' that bit and so finning as fast as I could I was on my own alongside the shark... amazing... all 5 metres of it. I felt someone tug my fin but 'forgot' to slow down!
After lunch we went on a long reef snorkel, we stuck with Chris (the others went off with the other crew). We were treated to a trio of Eagle Rays, a Guitar Shark (for some reason I keep thinking Banjo shark), stings rays on the sea floor and a nursery of hundreds of little puffer fish on the sand.
It was a brilliant day only marred by the three boys who were so rude and badly behaved. They took handfuls of food from the lunch buffet and then did not eat it. They would not use a plate when the crew asked them to and interrupted whenever the marine biologist was talking. I made the suggestion to the skipper afterwards that the age limit should be set at 15 years old (or use them as bait for the Great Whites!).
On the way back (Chris gave us a lift) we spotted a goanna (like a monitor lizard) and finally saw the emu chicks that we knew were around but had been hiding in the bush. It's the male that looks after the chicks and he is doing a good job but wild dogs (not dingos) and foxes pick off the babies when they are little.
