We had an especially lucky day swimming with these peaceful sharks who live on krill and micro-organisms they catch on their gills as they slowly cruise through the water with their mouth open. Their teeth are vestigal so they can't bite you. We swam about an hour or so, in short and long spurts, with 2 or 3 different sharks. The guides tell us we had one of the longer swims they've ever experienced.
Coral Bay is a great place to experience the Ningaloo Reef. You can swim out about 300m or so and you're right in dense reef of all sorts with lots of fishies. You can also take a glass bottom tour of the inner reef or a longer tour outside the reef to see the whale sharks. It's expensive but if you get to see some sharks it's well worth it.
The Ningaloo is a "fringing" reef that's right there immediately off shore --- the waves crash over the reef maybe 1km or so from the shore. By comparison the Great Barrier Reef is some 35 or so miles out from the shore! I am not keen about long boat rides with folks chundering. I'd much rather to swim out from the beach and find a reef right there.
The morning started with we tourists meeting at the dive shop. There were about a dozen of us, the skipper and 3 tour guides -- Macca, Shane and Pru. We're early in the season and have a small group. Late in the season they'll have two boats of 30 people each. This makes for a big difference when you swim with the sharks as only 10 people can swim near the sharks at any time.
We rode a bus for a short drive to the marina about 1km or so down the beach. We were to Coral Bay back in 2004 but didn't go snorkelling with the sharks as the weather made the water too rough. This time the weather was on our side and we've been told that they've got to swim with the sharks every day for the last few days.
The marina wasn't here back in 2004, we recall driving down the beach and drift snorkelling back then.
Before we go out to chase the sharks we have a little test swim so the guides can gauge how good we are. It's on the reef and a bit of chase the guide -- she's swimming ahead and we try to catch her. It's quite tough to keep up. I have my flippers and am struggling to keep up but do, others are falling back. Kate is trying flippers (she has never used the before) but isn't getting the hang of them, she finds they slow her down. Back on the boat Kate persuades the guide that she can swim better without them. As you can see from the photo she swam free-style without flippers and did quite well.
The sharks are cruising outside the reef in deep water. Spotter planes find them and relay their location to the boats -- this helps to explain why it's so expensive. We spent about an hour or so racing about before spotting the sharks we swam with.
We bought a "bag" to take our snapshot camera into the water. It's hard to judge what you're shooting but we did get some pretty good photos. A proper underwater camera would be nice but we're seldom taking pictures under water. There were some guys with good cameras and we bought a DVD that the camera man took of the trip. Should be interesting.
If you're ever in Coral Bay West Australia and it's at the right time (they come after the coral spawn in late March) do spend the money and go swimming with the whale sharks. It's an experience only a very few ever experience.
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