So when we left our flat (a comfortable bed, sofa, television - it goes one) for some reason I brought with us a small tub of vaseline. Now this has become very handy over the last couple of days. As the beard has now developed into what a normal man's would look like I had a problem with my snorkling equipment. According to the dive instructor I was going to need some vaseline to keep my mask water tight. After Helen went we best get down the shops I was like "don't worry about that, I have some in the van" - Helen looked shocked as to why I would have some.
Anyway bit of a long winded start, but to cut things a little bit shorter we have probably just spent to last couple of days of the trip. After my last entry and feeling like I needed some sort of medical scrub every time I left our campervan we spent the morning watch the Dolphin feeding in Monkey Mia. It was awesome as the dolphins (tons of them) just came up to the shore line at around 8am to get fed. It was like they were a circus act, and I did wonder whether there was a boat out on the harbour with a big stick! Anyway after a good start we spent a very boring Carvanara, spending most of my time trying to find an honest mechanic to advise me on our broken light (dad you will be proud, worked it out myself in the end - save myself $48 from the initial quote and all done with a swiss army knife screw driver!).
The next day we headed over to Coral Bay, which is just South of Exmouth. We spent a great night there, the campsite being on the edge of the beach and the coral reef being about 5 meters into the water - it was awesome. It was the first time we had properly felt on holiday - probably the beaches and the sunny weather!
Sadly (or so we thought) we had only one night there as we had booked whale shark diving at Nigaloo reef, just off Exmouth. Now the whale shark is apparently the biggest fish in the world, so we were quite excited but like any tour with a big group of people, and when there is some form of diving involved you do get a little worried. We need not worry, it was by far the best tour we have been on. So good that they actually exhausted us to the point where everyone was struggling to keep going.
So what do they do. Well diving with Whale Sharks is what they obviously do but the way it is done is great. As the fish is in its natural habitat there are lots of rules, and the main challenge for the tour operators is to line all the snorklers up so the fish swims past. As you can imagine it was pretty hectic. They basically shout get ready, you have 1 min, everyone scambling to get their wet suits done up, flippers on etc and then they would just shout follow me and you would plop in the water trying to follow the guide ahead. Now as clear as the water is you can't see for miles, so you are literally floating there thinking what the hell is coming your way and whether you are going to be in its way - what would you do then. So after what seems like an eternity you suddenly catch sight of this fish monster, minding its own business eating plankton as it just glides along. Amazingly peaceful and a truely aswesome sight to see and it was a great rush to be swimming alongside it.
I mentioned that we got tired, well this was becasue we had 5 separate swims with this whale shark, spanning across 60 mins and once we thought it was all over they decided to throw us in again to swim with some Mantra rays, which equally were awesome. After we were all tired tired we still had 3 hours to kill as the Whale Shark was spotted by their spotter planes at around 11am so we went whale watching, saw tons of dolphins, a couple of Dugons and a leopard shark.
Anyway I'll stop at this, but will say if you ever get the chance then please go, really worth the trip.
Out for a nice dinner tonight to cap off an awesome couple of days. Sadly tomorrow we have a massive drive as we try and make big dents into the trip to Broome where the Horizontal falls await.
Steve & Helen
