There were quite a few people waiting for them but not as many as the previous days. We waited and waited and the dolphins hadn't come, it wasn't looking good! Jade and I went for a nice walk along the beach whilst we were waiting. Down the beach a little there is a sand spit that was covered in comerets.
Jade found pippies and a star fish on the beach whilst we were walking and of course being the shell lovers that we are we had to do a spot more collecting.
Our nice stroll turned into a sprint when we noticed that the dolphins had come in. They were quite shy this morning not coming as far in and not hanging around as long as they did the other day. There are 5 feeding dolphins and not all of them came in either.
The beach gets an electric magical feel about it when these beautiful animals come in. I'd really like to bring one home with me!!
The dolphins are allowed to be fed 500g of fish at each of the 3 feeds that can take place between 8am and 12 noon. Dolphins eat approx 15kg of fish per day so the amount they are fed is very little of their daily diet. The number of fish that it takes to make up the 500g grams varies and today it was only 3 fish - that meant only 3 people could be chosen per dolphin (first feed only 3 dolphins came in for a feed).
During the first feed a comeret came in and was swimming around, the dolphins weren't too happy about it and chased him off...
We sat and waiting for a bit to see if the dolphins would come back again for another feed. Dave and Tom had joined us on the beach by this time. I said lets give them 20 mins to see if they come back. Well the beautiful dolphin called Surprise came back with less than 5 mins to spare. She and her lovely calf Sonic. She was the only one that came in, several of the others were swimming around a little deeper but she was the only one that fronted for a feed.
I was so incredibly lucky, the volunteers chose me to feed Surprise her first fish. I was allowed to take someone up with me so my dolphin buddy Jade came with me whilst Dave had the high pressure job of taking the photos.
Well that done my day couldn't really get any better, my work here at Monkey Mia was complete - feeding dolphins, seeing dugongs what more could I ask for...
We hopped in the car (first time in 2 days and the kids really didn't want to do it) and headed into Denham - only 26kms away. Denham is the town closest to Monkey Mia.
Monkey Mia itself is a National Park and all that is out here is the Dolphin Resort where we are staying. The only water out here is bore water (for showering, washing your clothes and dishes) or desalinated water that you can drink - tastes YUCK!!! At the resort there is a small supermarket for emergency supplies but any proper shopping, petrol etc you need to go to Denham to get it. Denham is a tiny sea side town and there is not much there either - a tiny IGA and a few other touristy type shops.
We had fish and chips in the shade of the park overlooking the water and then headed off to Ocean Park to see the sharks. They run tours through each hour and we were lucky our tour began with just us and 2 other people (there were a few others that joined us by the end). The tour guide was a marine biologist and she had heaps of great information about all the fish that we were looking at. The kids learnt that a star fish eats and poos through its mouth and they met a gorgeous turtle called Bob who is missing part of his flipper. He is being rehabilitated and will hopefully be re-released when he is older.
After the tour we sat outside on their deck and had some ice creams. Sitting here you can see out the most westerly point of Australia. Too far away for it to show up in a photo but was visible with the naked eye.
We stopped back into Denham again and visited the shop associated with the pearl farm where I was served by Mr Farmer wants a wife himself. I was after a simple black pearl necklace. They had some lovely pieces of jewellery in there but not what I was after. He told me he could make me what I wanted - now we're talking.
He brought out a range of black pearls of all different shapes and sizes for me to select the one I wanted. He then let me choose the setting I wanted and then off to work he went. I was able to go into the workshop to watch him making it and he told me a little about the pearls whilst he was working. Apparently it takes 2 years for a pearl to grow and only 10% will actually grow. If they aren't big enough after the first growth then they can be put back in again for another 2 years to be re-grown again. My pearl is a first round pearl. I can't wear it for 24 hours as the glue has to dry so modelling it is a little difficult. The photo below is fairly average due to lighting in the van but gives you an idea. Rest assured I will be modelling it regularly once I'm home.
Kids spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool swimming and playing with other kids and then we enjoyed a lovely dinner outside. Had to protect the cooking bbq from the rampart emus - this involved using a broom cause no amount of scary noises and arm flapping would get rid of them.
We are all a little sad about leaving here tomorrow we have thoroughly enjoyed our time here but Coral Bay awaits us and I'm sure we'll have a great time there too.
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