Divine Diving

Coral Coast: Ningaloo Reef Marine Park

Exmouth, Cape Range National Park and Coral Bay

November 2 to November 12, 2015

Turquoise Bay, part of the world heritage Ningaloo Reef Marine Park.

Ningaloo Reef: It's stunning, sublime, superb ... whatever other superlative you can conjure.  And, as KT Clark told me before we ventured forth, it should be on everyone's bucket list. We started at the northern end of the reef near Exmouth, camped midway in Cape Range National Park and then journeyed south to Coral Bay. We did much swimming and snorkelling but also tackled a few more gorges (Garry insisted!)

The northern tip of North West Cape 

Dorky snorkellers at Turquoise Bay. 

Oyster Stacks. This doesn't look much of a snorkelling spot but the colour and variety of marine life huddled around the stacks was amazing. Unfortunately, I don't have an underwater camera so no record of what we saw. 

But we did see the young goanna above, and the emu below.  

This family of emus regularly stopped cars in Exmouth. It is a male and his chicks. In the world of emus, dad takes responsibility for the young after they hatch. Here he is plucking seeds from a palm tree for his offspring to gobble up. 

We saw a lot of wildlife but I wasn't fast enough to capture it. There were euros (wallabies not currency), bustards, more goannas, osprey and egrets, and an army of crabs that marched into our camp about 10 each night looking for a feed. 

Our campsite in Cape Range National Park. Ningaloo Reef is just beyond the sand dune.

Looking back at the camp site from the beach with Cape Range behind. 

Garry got this sneaky photo as I went through my paces on the beach. Check out the cool yoga outfit!? 

Pretty shot of the sand dune at sunset, the closest I get to a sunset shot in this blog.

We traversed two gorges - Yardie Creek and Mandu Mandu. Not long walks but quite beautiful. 

Yardie Creek Gorge is spring fed but regularly gets a good influx of salt water, so lots of fish.  

Mandu Mandu Gorge. A dry gorge - until it rains - with a white stone bed framed by red cliffs.  

Then it was on to Coral Bay .... and this is when things got really interesting. We decided to do our PADI Open Water Dive certification here, a three day intensive course. I was a bit of a nervous Nellie as I had never dived before; Garry was an old hand but had never got his certification.  We had to study for five hours, do four hours of theory and then sit multiple exams. This diving lark was shaping up to be more complicated than I anticipated.  We had an afternoon in a swimming pool learning basic skills then into the big bad ocean. I over-equalised on my first dive and bruised my ear drums - not a good start. But I persisted and by the third day was hooked. We saw many reef sharks, manta and sting rays, turtles, cobia, wobbegong, barracuda and an amazing array of fish. Brilliant.

Rough looking crew about to make their final 18m descent onto a shelf outside the reef.  It's on the 23rd parallel.  It was the most amazing dive with a manta ray circling us for about five minutes, three turtles trundling by, a cruising barracuda and hundreds of divine fish.

Jen and Garry going down. Thanks to Orelie Morales who took these photos during the dive.  

Reef sharks galore. Sebastian suggested I rub them under their chins, blow bubbles in their gills, stroke their fins admiringly, bulge eyes and gasp repeatedly when inspecting their dental arsenal, place my head in their mouths as a sign of submission and offer a fellow diver as an appetising alternative. Garry wasn't impressed. 

Thanks again to Orelie Morales for these pics. 

A manta ray skimming the rock shelf. 

Swimming with the manta rays. The hand in the air indicates there is a manta below. 

Our very patient and professional instructor Jess.

A 2km walk along Coral Bay foreshore is a natural reef shark nursery. We counted about 50 sharks cruising the shallows. Not a great photo but for what it's worth .....

Those black slashes are all sharkies.  

A very pretty little stingy skimming the shallows.

Happy Garry with dive master Kai. For what it's worth, we dived with Ningaloo Reef Dive, an extremely professional outfit based in Coral Bay. We are now certified to dive in open water up to 18m. I trust my ears will eventually recover. 

Bye bye Coral Bay. You are very beautiful.