We waited, and we waited and we waited some more and the dolphins never came. It was disappointing not to see them but nice to know that it is on their terms whether they come in or not and it made our experience yesterday so much more special. We did see a turtle pop his head up a couple of times in the dolphin zone which was pretty cool and Jade also had fun at the waters edge watching and playing with the hermit crabs. Was nice just to spend some mother/daughter time together too.
After a failed dolphin experience we spent a lovely 3 hours on a catamaran sailing around the bay - yep life is really tough for us at the moment!!!
It was lovely just sailing around the bay checking out the cliff faces from the water. The cliffs are red, the sand white and then the colours of the water - the light and the dark blues and turquoises with the sun shining on them - doesn't get much prettier.
For those reality TV fans remember the Farmer wants a Wife show, a few series's ago there was a guy, a pearl farmer from Monkey Mia - well this is his pearl farm. For $80 (for a family) you can get a boat out to the farm and go for a tour, as today is Sunday its not open - no 7 day trading out here!
We cruised around for a bit longer moving our way out to the sea grass beds where we were hoping to see turtles, dugongs, sea snakes and what ever other form of wild life wanted to show its head.
The cruise was incredibly well run, they even provided polarised sunglasses for those that didn't have them to make spotting the animals easier in the water. They offer a 100% satisfaction guarantee if you don't see enough animals you can go again and again until you do. They guarantee you won't get sea sick and if you do they will give you $100 cash and they have no minimum numbers to run, if its just you they will still take you. Our boat was not at all over crowded so it was easy to move around to be able to see the animals.
We were so incredibly lucky to see not just one dugong but several and not too far off the boat either. They are incredibly difficult to photograph as they don't come up for long and when they do they just sort of surface like a submarine and then go back down again. I found myself in the perfect position at one point though and did manage to get some good shots! Apparently there are about 14000 dugongs in the Shark Bay area, they estimate that's approx 1 per square kilometre. They are protected now - only aborigines are allowed to hunt them. Apparently they taste like pork, how you could eat one I'll never know.
We saw a couple of sea snakes but I wasn't quick enough with the camera to get them and we had several lots of dolphins pass through as well.
Due to the way the wind was blowing we couldn't get in to many of the normal places that they like to take us but we did enjoy a nice sail just cruising around...
We arrived back around lunch time to be greeted by the emus swimming down at the beach. I had no idea they can swim. Apparently they enjoy a regular swim and have a style somewhat similar to ducks however nowhere near as graceful.
The camels were also in for the camel safari. The camel man needs to learn some customer service skills though - he wasn't at all keen for people to photograph his camels if they weren't riding them - sorry mate but that's what tourists do and that's all part of being a tourist attraction and now thanks to his attitude we'll be waiting till we get to Broken Hill for our camel rides.
Spent many hours at the pool this afternoon. Kids buddied up with some other children so it was nice for them as they haven't found to many other children on our travels. Also it was so damn hot at the beach that we had to be out of the sun and this seemed like the best place - the pool is almost all under shade so the water is incredibly cold!
This evening we went off on the boat again for our free sunset cruise. Sounds so lovely and peaceful, perhaps a little romantic even don't you think. Well let me tell you it was far from that. The wind was howling and it was hard just to stay sitting up - forget about moving around the boat!. Tom's hair had been standing on end and he had a very sad look on his face and kept saying "This really isn't very pleasant Mum!" so both the kids made themselves comfortable on the bean bags down the back of the boat fairly early in the cruise. Dave and I toughed it out sitting on the side - I copt a couple of hugh drenchings but thanks to a waterproof jacket (Oxfam gear is still coming in handy!) and the strong wind I was dry again in no time.
Sadly we have no photos to share for the cruise as trying to be organised I put the battery onto charge this afternoon but in the rush to leave the van to get to the boat I picked up the camera without the battery - pretty sad really between the 4 of us we have 6 devices that either are cameras of have a camera in them and we had none of them with us. Mother nature turned it on pretty nicely out there too there was a massive rainbow with the full arch looking out to sea on the horizon and then the beautiful sunset on the other side
I sit here writing this tonight and wish the world would stop, I have severe motion sickness and will be riding this boat for the rest of the night I think. Its been a fun day though with the highlight defiantly seeing the dugongs.
Tomorrow we are off to Ocean Park - Monkey Mia's version of Australia Zoo only instead of crocodiles its sharks and they feed them every hour - bronze whalers, tigers and hammer heads - better make sure we have all cameras ready for this one!!
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