Coral Bay
Alex and I are currently in Exmouth, but I have a sliver of internet so am taking this opportunity to post about Coral Bay. We are having a great time on the Western Coast of Australia and have a little less than a week here left.
We left Shark Bay early Tuesday morning to make the six-hour drive to Coral Bay. We stopped once in Carnarvon to stock up on groceries and fuel. I read online groceries get more expensive from here on out. The town of Carnarvon is known for its thriving agricultural industry due to the Gascoyne River and aquifer which supports several local banana, mango, papaya and vegetable plantations. We made a stop at Bumbak’s where we each tried one of their chocolate covered frozen bananas and shared a banana milkshake. It was a potassium-filled lunch! Ha! The frozen bananas were delicious and I already told Alex we’ll be making another stop in Carnarvon when we make the return trip back to Perth.
We arrived in Coral Bay around 3:30pm and after checking into the hotel, we walked down to Bill’s Bay, the main town beach located next to our hotel. Both Alex and I commented how touristy and busy this small town is. Since leaving Perth, each place we visited has been pretty quiet with only a handful of people. But Coral Bay feels so much busier and the beach was packed with families, a group of school-aged children, and everyone else in between. Not sure where they all came from as the West Coast is so remote and we hardly pass anyone on the roads. It was very surprising!
We spent Wednesday at Paradise Beach, a secluded and uncrowded beach. Alex and I purchased snorkel equipment when we arrived on the West Coast and finally got to utilize it at Paradise Beach. We both had a bit of difficulty with our mask fogging up (we'll have to use some of the de-fogging spray we bought), but did manage to see several fish and corals. Coral Bay is the start of the Ningaloo Reef, a World Heritage-listed site, found along the West Australia coastline. It is the world's largest fringing reef at 162 miles long. I'm hoping once I have my snorkel gear in better shape, I'll be able to spend more time in the water and among the marine life!
Alex and I spent Thursday at Five Fingers Reef. The road to get to the beach is only accessible by a four-wheel drive vehicle or by walking two miles from the boat jetty nearby. Since we do not have a four-wheel drive car, we wound up walking to the reef. It was a hot and dusty walk as it follows a sandy road with no shade whatsoever! We arrived hot and sweaty and were ready to jump into the water right away. Luckily, our snorkel gear worked much better on this day as Alex spent some time defogging it with our cleaner, shampoo, and as he puts it "good ol' fashioned spit!"!! Gross, but it works! The reef is right off the beach and at times the coral is in very shallow water. It. Was. Amazing! We saw so many colorful fish, large clams, sea cucumbers and Alex even saw several giant blue starfish. I read Five Fingers Reef is a great place to spot sea turtles, but neither Alex or I saw any while we were in the water. We had purchased an underwater camera from Amazon while we were in Melbourne, but when it arrived and we were testing it out, we found the quality was so terrible. It looked like photos you would get off a sketchy gas station surveillance camera! We ended up returning it and I'm sorry it wasn't better, because I would have loved to take photos of the fish and marine life we saw.
Walking to the reef
We booked a Ningaloo Reef Dive and Snorkel tour for Friday to see the manta rays which live in the open waters near the reef and are the largest rays in the world. There were about 20 people on board the boat – half were scuba divers and the other half were snorkelers (we were in the snorkeling group). We started the snorkel tour at the outer reefs and saw lots of coral but not many fish. Luckily, there was an underwater photographer on board, so I am able to post a few pictures of what we saw.
While we were boating to the next location, we ended up seeing a tiger shark from the boat! The boat photographer jumped into the water and took photos of the shark. Certainly not a job I would do voluntarily!!
The next stop was to the manta rays and it was such an amazing experience. The boats use spotter planes which circle the sky looking for manta rays. When they see a manta ray, they will notify the skipper who will boat to the location. Once we were in the water, we immediately saw a HUGE female manta ray. I would guess she was at least 8-feet from wing to tip and doing barrel turns. This is when the manta ray spins in circles upside down while feeding. After a little bit, the guides found another manta ray and we got to see two of them swim and barrel turn next to each other. It was so cool!
At the last snorkel site, we went to another spot on the reef and this time saw hundreds of colorful fish. There was a natural "cleaning station" which we snorkeled by. The cleaning station is a large cabbage coral where bacteria/parasite eating fish live and the larger fish, sharks and turtles somehow know to go there for a teeth and gill clean. In the cleaning station were five reef sharks that happened to get unnervingly close! Another exciting happening was I finally got to see my first sea turtle in the wild. It was a great day and a perfect way to wrap up our time in Coral Bay.
