Craig's Lumps is three big fingers of coral ridges covered in hard corals, bits of soft corals and millions of cracks, crevices and bumps housing every imaginable critter. The crystal blue water today let in a huge amount of light and the colours just popped. A huge turtle, manta rays, huge schools of fusiliers & other fishes, nudibranchs, moray eels...excellent marine life! One of the schools of fusiliers completely surrounded us before rising towards the surface and swimming away.
The snorkelers had an awesome time on this site, too...especially right at the end when humpback whales swam right under them!
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 25m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 18m
The whale sharks had a lot to live up to after that site and they didn't disappoint! We again had our first whale shark well before 11am. He was about 6m long and we spent over 30 minutes swimming along with him - it was an excellent drop!
We moved on to our second whale shark of the day and had multiple swims with him. He was just cruising along, not paying any attention to us. After this guy, we stopped on the main Ningaloo Reef for a bit of a snorkel on some ground that looked magical from the suface. It was almost like snorkeling in an aquarium the water was so clear & blue and the fish life was so close and so abundant. But then a HUGE humpback whale swam right underneath us and we knew we were out in the open ocean! This humpback was so fat - she must be pregnant. It was truly magnificent.
We decided to round things out with one more whale shark and had an awesome swim. He was so close to the surface that most of his tail was out of the water the whole time we were with him...maybe he was trying to fly!
On our way home we had humpbacks breaching quite close to us and one gorgeous humpback with a pure white tail swam right up to the boat, under us then out the other side. The water was so clear you could see all of the details on the whale and its white tail glowed like it was lit up from inside. Spectacular.
It took us a while to get back to the mooring, what with all the humpback activity and then having to stop yet again to snorkel with some more manta rays, but the sacrifice was worth it LOL
Back at the mooring, we though the day was over, but then a dugong swam past us, its cheeky smile a perfect way to end an amazing day!
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