Coral Bay
22. april 2023, Australia ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C
A 5am start this morning for the trip from Exmouth to Coral
Bay to make it in time for our manta ray tour.
As we drove along we were greeted with a fabulous sunrise.
We made it to Coral Bay with an hour up our sleeves. The feared mass exodus of Exmouth hasn’t yet occurred and we had clear driving all the way.
With an hour to kill we grabbed some food from the local bakery that was doing a roaring trade and picked up a few more souvenirs.
In June last year we booked the tour whilst waiting to get on the ferry for Vivid. We booked with Ningaloo Marine Interactions because of their scientific research.
Early this morning we boarded Utopia (after getting a group photo in our tour t-shirts) to search for manta rays, tiger sharks and dugongs (and anything else we came across).
The skipper, Fraser gave us a brief which included information about the reef and why they aren’t as colourful this far south as the reefs higher up in the tropics - it’s about the coral’s need to absorb light by the zooxanthellae and there being more light at higher latitudes and therefore more light is reflected, giving the colours.
Fraser is doing his PhD, with a thesis on the impact of manta ray feeding within the bay compared to outside the bay and the impacts of the feeding. An interesting topic but one that hasn’t been written yet.
In doing the role call, Fraser decided we looked like the Griswolds in our tshirts and so we adopted that name for the tour.
Brittany was on the camera whilst Naomi and Sophie were our guides.
We managed to see two manta rays - even though they were at depth and viz wasn’t the best, we still had a good time with them.
Having seen manta rays we searched for tiger sharks to snorkel with, but were unsuccessful.
Throughout the day the girls spoke to us about our trip and diving experiences.
After searching up and down the bay, we had a quick snorkel with two pink whiprays which would occasionally stop, reverse about 30 centimetres, shiver and then continue going forwards - they were feeding.
We finished off the tour with a snorkel at a site called Mazes where the viz was fantastic. We saw heaps of coral and fishlife, including a Tawny Nurse Shark that was about 2 metres long. To top it off, Fiona was snorkelling above it at the time - a rare event, seeing Fiona snorkel for such a long period of time! 🤣
At the end of our tour, back at the dock, Fraser led the crew and guests in a rendition of Happy Birthday for Macca and Daniel. A lovely touch.
Tour over, we could finally book into our caravan sites before heading to the on-site cafe for a seafood platter.
A long day, but a really enjoyable day.Les mer
Reisende Coral Bay was my favourite snorkelling place 😊
perfect!! [Agnes]
Reisende I've just heard it with the soundtrack - perfect!