Exmouth, Ningaloo and decimated coral

A major attraction for me to come here was snorkeling at Ningaloo. A major bleaching event in 2024-25 saw coral decimated on both sides of our continent and right up north to PNG. The extended heat wave kept the water temperature well above the limit corals can survive in. If the coral can recover it could be a decade before it returns to anything like it was and that assumes no future bleaching events. Grateful we saw the corals, east of PNG when we did.

Exmouth is a small town of just 2000 permanent residence but swells to up to 10, 000 during school holidays. Judging by the number of caravans, camping trailers and caravan parks, a good number of the tourists who visit come by road. No doubt there is a healthy number of grey nomads who are traveling around the country. There is not a lot to see in the town as you would expect in this part of the country it has been built primarily on sand. There are many trees and some low shrubs, housing is very basic and made of steel, everywhere there is evidence of termites. The sun is at least shining but there is a stiff breeze. Not exactly hot weather, I'm sure we will encounter some later.

Exmouth is located at the tip of North West Cape on Exmouth Gulf. Ningaloo is on the other side opposite the Exmouth township. Overlooking the western side of the cape is a lighthouse which would have been essential in the early days because as with the other coasts we have seen, it is very rugged in places. We can see clearly an array of 400 meters tall radio communication towers for submarines these continue to be important. Some of the vegetation is in flower, not showy European type flowers but very small sometimes bright colored flowers on silvery grey bushes often growing in rocks. I find this interesting because it is such a contrast to the native plants we have in our garden.

There is a beach at Turquoise Bay not far from here where we will snorkel. This will be a drift snorkel as there is a current running south to north. It's a windy day and it turns out the current is very strong. My preference for snorkeling is to be able to drift and hover at my own speed over the coral to observe the life below however this was not possible as the current dragged us very quickly from our starting point to where we were to finish. We were advised where to get out of the water and buoys were set up to tell us where otherwise we were warned we might end up in Broome. It wasn't particularly pleasant battling against the current and the sea was very cold. I found myself swimming sideways and further out than I intended to be which wasn't a problem and I was able to get back however I did see a lot of large fish. Unfortunately because so much of the reef had been damaged by the bleaching event the fish numbers were clearly right down. At least we have now been there and despite the level of difficulty I had, I was pleased we had done it. It was a cold journey back to town as we were wet.

We didn't see a lot of point in going back into town to walk around so we spent the afternoon on board. We were a little fed up with the relatively low quality French wine and bought a decent bottle for dinner, an Argentinian malbec which we shared with another couple making it a very pleasant evening.Okumaya devam et