Manta Rays, Turtles and Reef Sharks...Oh My!
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Coral Bay,
Australia
Thursday, April 12, 2007
After spending the whole of the time that I had hired a sea kayak yesterday seeing giant killer sharks in every patch of coral in the bay (and therefore being slightly petrified of being in such an open and flimsy craft), it stands to reason that the most exciting thing that I saw yesterday was a couple of shovel rays, and that I would come into contact with actual live sharks today while I was in an even more precarious (potentially) position, that is snorkelling.
I decided to go on one of Coral Bay's Manta Ray tours as my special birthday treat to me, seeing as my presents from everyone else had been bought in advance - cheers for the plane ticket Mum and Dad, I'm having a great time - so there was only me who could buy me a present.
It turned out to be a fantastic birthday treat as we saw four manta rays, which are the biggest Rays in the world and completely harmless (they have no barb on their tails), and that is about as good as it gets according to our rather handsome guide Judd. They were all huge as well, no baby Mantas for us, the three largest were bigger thn me in length and wider than I was when I stretched out my arms - so they are fairly massive animals. They also seemed to get as much of a good look at us as we did at them, making a mockery of our attempts to stay behijd or to the side of them so as not to frighten them by constantly turning circles and lifting themselves in the water to get a better look at these strangefish tht hung around on the surface and tried to stay out of sight.
We were in the water for about half an hour and though it was incredible at the time, just due to their grace and size, it is even more surreal in retrospect because we were allowed to be part of some kind of beautiful underwater ballet, performd by curious, supersized rays. You will understand completely I think, why I did not want to leave. The only half regret I have is that I did not also fork out for the Whale shark tour, I in retrospect I think that it would have been worth every penny of the slightly pricey fee to take the tour.
But c'est la vie, and our tour was not yet over (and do not forget we had the vry handsome guide, who I became cripplingly shy infront of, as usual). We meandered ouy way to our next snorkelling site through the Ningaloo Turtle Sanctury and were graced with the presence of sven large green and loggerhead turtles, who, like the Manta rays were curious enough about the boat to come and give us a good look over. It quickly became a competition to see who could spot the next one, as we didn't swim with them because it frightens them and this sanctuary is one of the few places in the world where these animals are totally protected, so naturally, the rangers and locals, and tourists come to that, do not want to disturb the habitat as we all want the turtles to keep coming back.
Eventually, we got to our second site and were told by our guides that althouh we may see some sharks, it was unlikely and that anyway they would be perfectly harmless if we did, so not to worry. However, virtually as soon as we got into the water, Judd pointed out six or seven Black-tipped Reef sharks swimming about ten metres below us, the largest of which was about two metres in length. We spent a good ten minutes watching them and were priveliged to watch them at their cleaning station, something that they only go to if they are completely comfortable in the water. Even now I am not sure whether I should have been gratified or startled that they did not view us as a threat, but it was something that was incredible to watch. Cleaning consists of the shark lifting itself vertically in the water, nose up and tail down, and opening its jaws so that the cleaner fish can scour the debris and fish skin from the sharks teeth - so yes, I got a very good look at the sharks teeth, and it is strange that what fascinated me more was that they were being perectly docile while the cleaner fish swam happily in and out of their mouths. A fabulous and bizarre experience that made the sharks, of all things, appear to be nothing more than rather large household pets!
We continued the rest of the trip without seeing anything extraordinary, unless you count the myriad numbers of fish that live on the reef, and though they are very pretty, they paled in comparrison to the sharks, which in retrospect were even more incredible. The sense of awe that we felt was increased when we got back on the baot and Judd calmlyinformed us that black-tipped reef sharks are actually classified as danderous, they had only told us not to worry because they wanted us to get in the water - but I am glad that they did because I would not have missed that experience for the world, and the truth is that reef sharks tend to feed in the morning, so we were not top of their priority list at 1pm.
I spent the rest of a very enjoyable birthday lazing on the beach with Katherine, the girl I met in Exmouth, and I think that I can safely count this among one of the best birthdays ever.
