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We headed out off the West Side of the Nor'west Cape today for a couple of dives and some reef cruising. Central Station was our first stop and it was a little dirty, but filled with fish, eels, turtles, manta rays, sting rays, reef sharks and even a cuttlefish!
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 5-7m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 17m
For the second dive we headed a little further south in search of some cleaner water and Nick's Lumps was perfect. We saw the smallest white tip reef shark ever - he was the same size as the remoras on the bigger white tips! Green turtles, egg cowries, tomato rockcod, barracuda, schools of trevally, schools of convict surgeons, blue spotted sting rays and tons of colourful reef fish all hung out for our viewing pleasure in the brilliant blue water.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 20+m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 17m
There were also lots of humpback whales everywhere we looked! Wonderful day!
What an exciting day!!
We started off as usual with a gorgeous dive at Central Station. There were fish galore of every size and shape, turtles sleeping, turtles swimming along the reef, octopus showing off, eels peering out at us, nudibranchs adding dashed of colour and, of course, manta rays! We even had an enormous 3+m manta ray circling the divers and then cruising through the cleaning station before circling the divers again.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 20+m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 17m
The whale sharks were a ways away today so we had plenty of time to relax and enjoy the scenery and humpback whales as we headed south for our first swims. We again had multiple whale sharks and multiple drops. Our last drop of the day was incredible - we stayed in the water for over 40 minutes straight, the whale shark swimming at the perfect pace for everyone to be able to move around and see him from every vantage point. Yes, we were pretty tired after such a long swim but it was just incredible.
On the drive back towards the mooring we came across a rare sight - a dead humpback whale being devoured by over 15 big sharks including a whole bunch of huge tiger sharks! It was riveting to watch. We stayed on the boat, of course, sticking cameras off the edge of the marlin board now again. This is one of the coolest things we've ever seen!
Beautiful morning to head to Lighthouse Bay for a couple of dives. We started at Labyrinth and were delighted to find more turtles than we could count, some roving white tip reef sharks, big batfish lining up on the cleaning stations and big many spotted sweetlips hanging out all over the site. There were lots of small schools of trevally and a couple of big groups of mid-sized barracuda, too.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Blizzard Ridge had lots of action big and small today. Multiple olive sea snakes came up to give a look and wobbegong sharks slept under quite a few ledges. The cleaner shrimp were all busy with various cods plus some small damsels. We found a very cool ghost pipefish pretending to not be there and our stripey pair is still tucked back in their hole. Lionfish were everywhere - laying on the reef with their fins tucked in and floating just above the sand, slowly twisting this way and that in the small surge.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 12m
Our first Manta & Humpback Explorer of 2010 started us off with a perfect day! The seas were flat & warm, the sky sunny & blue, the temperature both in and out of the water just right. And the animals were awesome!
We started with some nice swims with a group of five huge manta rays. They didn't swim very far, but rather would swim a little ways and then bank gracefully and circle around us before swimming right in front of us again. We had excellent drops with them and really got to see how flexible and agile they are.
Once we were done with the manta rays we relaxed on the boat and watched several different humpback whales as they cruised up the coastline. One of them was very happy to show off his tail over and over again and another one seemed to pause every time it came to the surface so it could check us out with one eye!
The late afternoon clouds gave us a stunner of a sunset as we drove back to Exmouth from Tantabiddi. Pretty picture perfect end to a postcard kind of day!
We've started July with a couple of dives on the West Side as Lighthouse Bay wasn't accessible due to wind and swell. Central Station gave us a special dive with not only the usual creatures like turtles, schools of threadfin pearl perch, stingrays and moray eels but also a huge potato cod. We spent quite a bit of time enjoying the show that seven big beautiful manta rays put on for us over one of the cleaning stations. It was completely enthralling to watch them circle, lightly rub each others' wings, swim oh-so-close to our noses and then glide up towards the surface to bask in the rays of sunlight streaming through the blue water.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 15+m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 16m
We couldn't dive our second site as there was a raging current, so we packed up and headed a little bit north to a new site instead. Lots and lots of fish: parrotfish, butterflyfish, angelfish, trevally, barracuda, convict surgeons, tangs and damsels. We also saw a couple of turtles swimming away, some octopus trying to look inconspicuous and a variety of colourful nudibranchs scattered over the very cool hard coral reef structures.
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: mild
SURGE: slight
DEPTH: 15m
