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Another fabulous day here in Exmouth out on the Ningaloo Reef on our Whale Shark Adventure!
We started with a great snorkel on Central Station and saw all of our usual favourites: turtles, sharks, blue spotted stingrays, parrotfish, stars & stripes puffers, boxfish, convict surgeons, trevally, threadfin pearl perch...and MANTA RAYS! It doesn't matter how many times we see these guys, we always get excited!
Again today we had multiple whale sharks and multiple swims with each one. Mostly they were pretty slow and they let us stay for quite a while. One of them was gliding up and down from the surface to about 10 meters below us and back up again, over and over - clearly feeding and enjoying the abundant food source while totally ignoring us. We spent a lot of time in the water with the big guys today!
We also had more humpback whales as we cruised along the back of the reef. Their plumes of exhalations were enormous and hung in the air for ages. Wonderful!
A bit breezy this morning and a good sized swell coming in, so we did not do a scuba dive today but did have a great snorkel first thing. Always so much to see: turtles, rays, parrotfish, barracuda, white tip reef sharks, fusiliers, sweetlips. Great way to start our day!
The whale sharks today were wonderful again. We swam with three different whale sharks and the first two were 6-7m each. They got progressively slower as we swam with them...the first couple of drops on the first shark got our blood pumping a little bit! By our last drop on the third whale shark - by far the smallest one - it seemed the whale sharks had figured out that we weren't nearly as quick as they were and he was nice and slow, so we barely had to fin at all! What a fantastic day again!!
Today is the first day of 2011 with the humpback whales!! They were cruising north on their annual migration and we saw them in the morning as we headed south for our whale sharks. At the end of our day several groups of humpbacks accompanied us almost the whole way back. Beautiful to watch them with the backdrop of the Nor'West Cape behind them.
Central Station started our Whale Shark Adventure off with a bang today. Stacks of fish everywhere we looked, some reef sharks, a turtle and manta rays! Yay!! We love manta rays! We saw two swimming along the reef during our scuba dive and the snorkelers had another one that they were able to hang out with in the shallows.
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 6-9m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 17m
We found our first whale shark well before noon again today and swam our little hearts out. We had a BIG 8m whale shark who was awesome to watch: we were in the water looking towards where we knew he was but couldn't really see him and then this enormous mouth started to appear and all of a sudden BAM there was this huge fish!
It's a bit mind-blowing how something so large and something you know is right there can be virtually invisible like that.
Such a great day with our mantas, multiple whale sharks, great people, yummy food, fantastic snorkeling and postcard perfect weather!
Labyrinth was fantastic today! One of our groups saw two manta rays as they were coming down the mooring line - nice way to start a dive! There are almost solid walls of baitfish in several spots along the site and tuna, mackerel, trevally, coral trout and rankin cods were shooting through gobbling snacks and scattering the glittering fish everywhere for a few seconds before they reformed. And turtles. Too many to count and almost all of them very mellow and willing to let divers get up close for some great shots. One turtle swam with me for 15 minutes, it was amazing!
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: very slight
DEPTH: 15m
Blizzard Ridge didn't have the schools of baitfish, but had huge schools of slightly larger (but still juvenile) snapper, fusiliers and sea perch. The fish were packed so densely you couldn't see another diver only 2m away! Wobbegongs, white tip reef sharks, olive sea snakes, goatfish, batfish, coral cods, pairs of lionfish, moray eels of all sizes and a showoff octopus putting on a very cool display - great time underwater!
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 10-15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 15m
We saw a few dolphins on the way out and on the way back, too!
Another fabulous day out whale sharking here in Exmouth! No wind, calm seas, warm water and plenty of marine life!
We started with a dive at Central Station with turtles, white tip reef sharks, blue spotted lagoon rays, a big school of thread fin pearl perch, parrotfish, swarms of convict surgeons, a tawny nurse shark and tons more. The site was nice an active today!
DEPTH: 17m
TEMP: 27C
VIZ: 6-8
SURGE: none
CURRENT: very mild
We found our first whale shark pretty early and he was nice and slow to ease us into the day. We had multiple drops with him before finding two more sharks for more and more drops! One of our sharks was accompanied by about a zillion tiny to midsize fish swimming frantically under his chi in and all of the sharks had suckerfish under their bellies.
It was a very good day with beautiful conditions!
Central Station has cleared up a bit and more fish are moving in, too. We had great white tip reef sharks, rankin cods, coral trouts, threadfin pearl perch, stars & stripes pufferfish and a gorgeous schools of batfish with yellow fins circling in the blue water just above the reef. Octopus, nudibranchs and eels were abundant and a lone frogfish peered out at us from his hidey hole on the bottom edge of a ledge.
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 6-9m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 17m
It was a gorgeous day to be out on the ocean and it's a good thing because the whale sharks were late to pop up today! When they finally did, we hopped in for lots of good swims. They weren't fast today so it was easy to take a lot of time to watch the effortless movement through the water and most were surprised at how tired they were when we got back on the boat all tired after swimming!
Master Chompy, one of our favourite returning whale sharks, put in an appearance and let us swim pretty much forever with him. He's a very mellow & relaxed whale shark!
A good start to the big Easter weekend :)
Congratulations to our eight newest PADI Open Water divers!
They had an awesome dive course with two dives out at the Muiron Islands and two dives in Lighthouse Bay - all four dives were filled with so many different sea creatures there wasn't enough room in the log books to record them all!
One of our students has fallen so in love with diving with us here on the Ningaloo Reef that she's committed to several months of diving every day and training hard to achieve her PADI Dive Master certification - way to go, Constance!!
Thanks to Andreas for sending us this great group shot of Exmouth Diving Centre's newest PADI Open Water Divers - we hope you all get to dive again very soon!
You know it's going to be a good diving day when you are on the way to the dive sites and bottlenosed dolphins are leaping 20' into the air in your wake!
Gulliver's was hopping with shark action today - white tip reefies everywhere we looked and wobbegongs trying to pretend they were rocks. Turtles - hawksbills and greens - were popping up on the surface, swimming alongside the divers and giving themselves a good scratch on the reef. A couple of turtles were snacking away on some of the (overly) abundant red bell jellyfish. Barracuda, trevally, 6 banded angelfish, pink anemonefish, batfish, hawkfish, neon damsels and tons of gobies were just some of the fishes we enjoyed. Super dive!
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 10-15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Blizzard Ridge was also full of good stuff. The giant moray eel made an appearance and swam along for about 30m before weaving his way through some gaps in the reef. The schools of glassfish and baitfish are starting to increase and there was some feeding action by a few predator fish. Looks like the Emperor Angelfish have been busy - there were heaps of psychedelic coloured juveniles flitted about as well as a few adults. Cutest juvenile firefish with the most delicate fringe on his fins. Mating nudibranchs. More wobbies, white tips and turtles plus all of the usual schools of perch, sea pike, bullseyes and clouds of anthias. We were all smiling ear to ear and talking over one another about the cool stuff we found on this dive!
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 12-15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Fabulous day with the whale sharks today!
We started with a stop on the Ningaloo Reef for some diving and snorkeling at Central Station. There was a lot of action to see with coral trout, estuary cod, turtles, white tip reef sharks, raccoon butterflyfish, strawberry cod, crocodilefish, blue spotted rays, nudibranchs, sailfin catfish, parrotfish, long fin bannerfish and so much more!
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 3-8m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 18m
The whale sharks were super cooperative today and we once again had so many drops and swam so much that everyone was too tired to do any more! We swam with three different sharks ranging in size from 3.5 - 7m and all of them let us spend a lot of time with them. A couple of them were very curious and kept doing little circles around us and coming right up to the boat - we love it when they pay attention to us!
Stunner of a day!
We started in crystal blue, flat water at Central Station for an awesome dive and snorkel. White tip reef sharks, grey reef sharks, turtles, more fish than we could count, sting rays and octopus. A big leopard ray met us right at the bottom near the mooring and his spots were amazing! Later in the dive a huge cowtail ray rested half buried in sand while divers swam up nice and close. Just such an excellent site today!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 20-25+m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 17m
And the whale sharks were amazing, too. We swam with three today and had so many swims with them that we were all too exhausted to do any more! Our favourite whale shark today was actively feeding and standing on his tail. He would come right up to the back of the boat, mouth opening and closing, sucking down plankton for all he was worth! He even nose-bumped the marlin board and boat several times. Awesome doesn't even begin to describe our time with the whale sharks today, but it will have to do!
Out to the Muiron Islands for a special Thursday trip and we saw tons! Cod Spot was showing off masses of baitfish, tiny eels, wobbegong sharks, tuskfish, emperor angelfish, rankin cod, white tip reef sharks, honeycomb cods and lots of small parrotfish. This site was very active with feeding, cleaning and territorial displays today - so much to watch!
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 8-10m
CURRENT: very mild
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 17m
Whalebone also had lots of action and even more densely packed fish life. Schools of convict surgeonfish, five lined sea perch, trevally and sea pike. Huge 6 banded angelfish and green parrotfish. Tiny colourful nudibranchs. A good-sized roughback ray partially buried in the sand. Goatfish, snapper, damsels, anthias, wrasses...fish, fish and more fish!
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 8-10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 12m
Oh what a glorious Sunday! Gulliver's was first up and we were greeted by a trio of mackerel darting back and forth as soon as we put our heads underwater. The white tip reef sharks were being cheeky: allowing us to creep up close then flicking themselves forward a few feet causing a big sand storm between us. A huge loggerhead turtle kept pace for a while before heading off into the distance. Schools of five lined sea perch, goatfish and bulleyes; many spotted sweetlips & rankin cods at the cleaning stations; crazy shrimp & bouncing anemonefish; moray eels; blue spotted rays; semi-circular angelfish and stacks more. Fabulous dive that we didn't want to end!
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 15-20m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
The water when we pulled up to Blizzard Ridge was insanely blue. When we dropped over we discovered it was filled with tons of floaties (all food for the fishies!) but the blueness went on forever. Masses of glass & baitfish, a big roughback ray in the sand, wobbegong sharks under ledges, white tip reef sharks patrolling, olive sea snakes getting frisky with each other and us, nudibranchs, octopus, more cleaner shrimp action and clouds of bright pink anthias. A++ dive!
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 20-25+m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Another glorious day here on the Ningaloo Reef!
We dived and snorkeled at Central Station and the conditions were pretty nice. Blue water set a nice background for the unicornfish, trevally, small barracuda, snapper and cods. Moray eels, cleaner shrimp, nudibanchs and hermit crabs dotted the reef while blue spotted rays and one big cowtail ray took to the sand.
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 10-12m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 17m
The whale sharks were enthusiastically playing the game today and we had multiple drops on multiple sharks from very early on in our search! Most of the whale sharks we swam with today were from 4-7m and almost every one of them was swimming at a pretty leisurely pace which made tit perfect for spending lots of time with them.
A couple of the whale sharks we saw today did do the up and down thing a bit and it's so amazing to watch them move. They would swim along the surface, then dive gently & effortlessly disappearing into the deep...only to just as easily glide right back up in front of us again! Wonderful day out!
Woohoo!! Exmouth's whale shark season is starting with fantastic sharks popping up everywhere!
It was a little swelly first thing this morning, so we postponed our scuba dive and snorkeled on the reef instead. The Ningaloo Reef put on great snorkeling with all manner of reef fishes from tiny to huge. Afterward, we headed south towards where the whale sharks have been over the past few days and it wasn't long until we were on our first whale shark of the day.
We ended swimming with six different whale sharks ranging in size from about 3.5m - 8m! We even swam with Chompy, a returning whale shark who is missing most of its dorsal fin thanks to an attack several years ago.
A couple of the whale sharks were happily sucking down plankton with their mouths wide open and heads bobbing. Almost all of them were swimming pretty slowly today which made keeping up with them a whole lot easier after we'd been doing it a while.
We has awesome, long swims on almost every drop with every whale shark and, boy, were we tired by the time we left the whale sharks to head home!
On the way back, we stopped for a relaxing snorkel on the reef and the scuba divers jumped into much calmer and clearer conditions than we'd seen in the morning. Central Station was buzzing with parrotfish, scorpionfish, threadfin pearl perch, blue spotted lagoon rays, octopus, white tip reef sharks, mantis shrimp, convict surgeonfish, cardinalfish and tons more.
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 10-12m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 17m
An awesome day out on the Ningaloo Reef!
Magical day! Indo-Pacific Humpback and bottlenose dolphins escorted on our way out to the Muiron Islands today so things were off to a fantastic start before we even hit the water.
Cod Spot was teeming with big and little marine life today. Wobbegong sharks, white tip reef sharks, moray eels of all sizes, leatherjackets, parrotfish, baitfish, sting rays, schools of convict surgeonfish, barracuda, a stonefish...it was a feast for our eyes!
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 8-10m
CURRENT: very mild
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 17m
Whalebone was also filled with fish and critters from top to bottom! Six-banded angelfish, Emperor angelfish, several species of butterflyfish, trevally, shrimps, drummers, many spotted sweetlips, snapper, perch, nudibranchs, scorpionfish, humbugs and bright neon damsels were just a few that we saw. Great dive!
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 10-12m
CURRENT: very mild
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 13m
We also had a terrific snorkel on the east side of the Islands, finally the visibility has gotten a whole lot better in this area. The Coral Gardens were amazing with the quantity of reef fish, blue spotted rays, Christmas tree worms, sea pike...but our best sighting of the snorkel site was THREE LEOPARD SHARKS!! So cool.
And then more dolphins on the way home. Fantastic!!
Another beautiful day here on Ningaloo Reef and we headed for Lighthouse Bay. We decided to check out Razor's as we haven't dived it since the cyclones have come through and wanted to see how the sea fans have held up. Not well. Most of them are only a fraction of their size pre-cyclones, which is sad, but it will be interesting to see how quickly they grow back. There were still plenty of fish - parrotfish, honeycomb cod, goatfish, anthias, surgeonfish, angelfish, butterflyfish, trevally, squirrelfish and lots more! Eels, small crabs, shrimps and tiny nudibranchs were tucked in every nook. The best sighting on this dive was a beautiful tawny nurse shark swimming past us!
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 5-8m
CURRENT: very mild
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 12m
Labyrinth was over-run with turtles again today! We love our green turtles. Octopus, nudibranchs, coral trout, rankin cod, batfish, anemonefish, moorish idols, white tip reef sharks, blue spotted lagoon rays...this site was pretty active today and everyone had a fabulous time!
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 5-8m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: very mild
DEPTH: 12m
Our first Whale Shark Adventure for 2011 was fabulous!
We started our day with a snorkel & dive at Central Station. The conditions were lovely and there were lots of fish to entertain us. Bluebone, Coronation Trout, Estuary Cod, Queenfish, Batfish, Threadfin Pearl Perch, Trevally, Sailfin Catfish, parrotfish, buttrflyfish, angelfish, anemonefish, moorish idols... Small reef octopus were also pretty cool!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 6-10m
CURRENT: mild
DEPTH: 18m
The first couple of whale sharks we found were doing the bounce thing -up and down, up and down - so it was tricky to get any good time with them. But then the next whale shark we found was happy to stay up with us and we had some excellent swims! And the next two whale sharks we had were great, too! Most of the whale sharks we saw today were in the 4-6m range and all were beautiful - yay for whale shark season again!!
We had an excellent snorkel on the way back to the mooring, too. A big roughback ray under a ledge, gorgeous nudibranchs, lionfish, bright Christmas tree worms and lots of small reef fish. After the dive, while we were cruising along, we saw some dugongs - an awesome end to the day!
Attention all PADI Dive Masters & Instructors on the Ningaloo Reef!
The 2011 PADI Member Update is happening next Monday - 28 March at the Novotel Ningaloo!
6.30pm for drinks & chatting before the Update begins.
This year the format is slightly different as we will have a drink & canapes before the one hour update and then another drink afterwards - so now there are two great reasons to attend: getting all the gos' about the new PADI stuff you need to know and having a free drink with some great people!
David Oliver has asked if you can please let him know if you will be attending so he can organize catering. You can contact him directly or drop us a note with ATTENDING PADI MEMBER UPDATE in the memo line - EMAIL US HERE.
What a beautiful day to be out on the ocean!
We headed out to the Muiron Islands, confident that the visibility was finally clearing up and were rewarded with great blue water on dive one at Whalebone. The colours of the soft corals were vibrant blues, yellows, oranges, pinks and purples. A big school of drummers spun a flashing silver funnel from the bottom almost to the surface as we hovered nearby trying not to get dizzy. The swim thrus had a little bait action and some medium sized cods hanging out in the shadows. Nudibranchs, sailfin catfish, yellow flutemouths, mangrove jacks and blue spotted lagoon rays caught our eyes and a funny batfish weaved back and forth across the sand. We had a lovely dive!
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 12m
CURRENT: mild; current & chop on surface
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 12m
The breeze started to come in, so we tucked around to the other side of the Islands for the rest of the day and did dive two at East Side Bommies. Unfortunately, the visibitliy wasn't as great, but the water was still blue and there were 1000s of small things to see up close: eels, Christmas tree worms, damsels, anthias, firefish, blue spotted rays, shrimps, porcelain crabs and anemonefish. We also had some white tip reef sharks, pairs of moorish idols, lots of bright yellow butterflyfish, purple, orange & green parrotfish and many other pretty reef fish. A relaxing & enjoyable dive!
Gorgeous day to be out on the ocean!
Labyrinth greeted us with green turtles everywhere! This has been a very good year for turtles, it seems, and we've got every size imagineable. Batfish, cleaning stations, hunting coral trout, tuskfish digging in the sand, blue spotted sting rays, tiny mantis shrimp, octopus and a big, fat cowtail ray were just the tip of the iceberg on all we saw today.
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 6-12m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Blizzard Ridge had more consistent visibility and excellent creatures. Wobbegong sharks, lionfish, anemonefish, olive sea snakes, trevally, barracuda, snapper, more octopus, nudibranchs, banded cleaner shrimp and lots of rankin cod. In one of the crevices four enormous estuary cod hunkered down, their eyes rolling up to keep an eye on us as we cruised overhead. Great dive!
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 12m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
