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Another brilliant day of diving at the Muiron Islands. We stopped at Cod Spot first up and all of the usual suspects were waiting to greet us. The batfish population has exploded and there were groups of 3-10 everywhere we looked along with one big school bopping around in the blue under the boat. A very cool outlined juvenile batfish teased us for awhile. Trevally buzzed about in a huge school and pairs roamed close to the reef. White tip reef sharks lazed on the sand and crayfish poked their antennae out at us. Oh, almost forgot - MANTA RAY! Huge wings made his patrol look totally effortless and all we could do is hang there and adore him. Awesomeness!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 8-10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 17m
Whalebone was next up and it was completely filled with smaller things: octopus, nudibranchs, 3 different kinds of moray eels, crabs, bright blue neon damsels, pink anthias, mantis shrimp, cleaner shrimp and lionfish. Plenty of big rankin cod, barracuda, trevally, surgeonfish and parrotfish roamed around, too. It was so busy it was like a carnival underwater today!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 12m
After some lunch and time in the sun, we all dropped in for a big snorkel at North East Bommies. We had turles, rays, sharks, schools of convict surgeons, firefish and more glittery reef fish than we could count. A perfect end to the day!
Contact Exmouth Diving Centre for the best of Ningaloo Reef diving & whale sharks! Email us or ring us on 08 9949 1201.
Yesterday the machine we use for emails for Exmouth Diving Centre died a quick death. It was working fine all morning and then BAM dropped dead with no warning in the afternoon.
We hope to get our alternative email system up and running later today or tomorrow but until we do, we will be unable to answer recent emails as they are stuck on the old hard drive and we won't be able to download new ones. There will also be a delay in emailing new confirmations, so please be sure to record your confirmation number when you make your reservation by phone.
On the upside, our computer tech believes that almost all of the data from the old hard drive is salvageable so one the new system is running, we should be able to access any emails you have sent in the past 48 hours or so.
We expect to have all emails answered by Friday afternoon. If you have not received a personalized answer from us by then, please resend your email.
If you would like assistance before Friday, please ring us on 08 9949 1201 between 0800 - 1715 Western Australian time any day of the week and our friendly shop crew will help you over the phone. You can also fax us on 08 9949 1680 24 hours a day.
Thanks for your patience - and if any of you have a great recommendation for a new lightweight laptop, we're all ears!
A little choppy as we started our Whale Shark Adventure, but the Floats had plenty of marine animals to make us forget about the short bumpy ride out. Sweetlips and big snapper hung out at the top of the peaks, unicornfish and surgeons tucked under overhangs and parrotfish made a racket as they gnawed on coral. A brave mantis shrimp scuttled from one hole to the next, his bright green back standing out like neon against the reef.
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: strong
SURGE: moderate
DEPTH: 15m
The whale sharks were loving the rolling seas today. We swam with four different whale sharks and multiple long, slow drops with most of them. One of the whale sharks kept trying to get a better look at us so kept circling around, rounding us up. They were all in pretty blue water. The sharks today were about the same size as the majority of whale sharks we've been seeing here on the Ningaloo Reef: 3m-7m. It's amazing how much bigger a 7m whale shark is compared to a 5m whale shark!
We love whale sharks!!
Windy and choppy on the surface today so we were really looking forward to being underwater! We started at Lassiter's and were treated to cruising reef sharks, snoozing wobbegongs, blue spotted rays, a big roughback stingray, parrotfish, moorish idols, a collection of nudibranchs and a pair of harlequin shrimp - one shining pink and one glowing purple. Highly active dive!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 10m
CURRENT: moderate
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 12m
Dive two was at Blizzard Ridge and all of the schooling fish - threadfin pearl perch, fusiliers, trevally - looked like they had double the usual membership. An enormous bull ray ignored us and white tip reef sharks buzzed up and down the ridge. Our resident giant moray eel was having a spa day with multiple clear cleaner shrimp & cleaner wrasses attending to him.
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 7m
CURRENT: moderate
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 12m
It was like someone flipped a switch today after a couple of very rough and windy days. The day turned lovely here on the Ningaloo Reef. We started at Central Station and had schools of trevally, big cowtailed stingrays, blue spotted rays, curious spotted pufferfish getting cleaned, a variety of nudibranchs and lots of balls of glassfish covering the reef.
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 10-15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 15m
And whale sharks. We had so many whale sharks today we lost count! And we had multiple, long, leisurely swims with each one. Several of them were circling us so we didn't even have to swim sometimes - just lay on the surface and let the whale sharks come to us! Now that's awesome.
We were swimming along happily with a 6m guy when he decided to dive deep. We kept following until he was out of sight and then signaled for the boat to come pick us up and move us to the next shark but just before we were about to get back on board a NEW whale shark swam right up to surface next to us! Now that's double awesome!!
What a terrific day out on our Whale Shark Adventure again! May is shaping up to be a wonderful month and we expect the whale sharks to be abundant all through June, too. Don't miss out - drop us a line and make your booking now!
Rough start on the way to the dive sites, but the day improved the longer we were out and the dives were crazy active! We started at Blizzard Ridge...actually we started by driving past an enormous whale shark on the way to Blizzard Ridge...and the site was rockin'. Honeycomb cod, rankin cod, coral trout, trevally, mackerel, barracuda patrolled mid water. Three different kinds of moray eels, including a black and white blotched one, waved in the slight current. Flatworms, nudibranchs, shrimps, hermit crabs. And DOLPHINS! Two dolphins came up behind a group of divers to check them out, flashed a smile and then effortlessly zoomed off.
WATER TEMP: 28C
VISIBILITY: 7-9m
CURRENT: mild
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 14m
Labyrinth had a lot to live up to and it did so without breaking a sweat. Multiple turtles, white tip reef sharks, huge batfish, active cleaning stations, anemonefish darting in and out of their anemones, octopus showing off, scorpionfish blending in to the reef, schools of convict surgeons and parrotfish and snapper. MORE DOLPHINS! Seeing dolphins underwater is just unbelievable and we had them on both dives!!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 7-9m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 13m
We've been flooded with emails & enquiries lately and have fallen a little behind in getting good answers to you all. We beg your patience as we work furiously to catch up.
We promise to have emails out to you by Saturday afternoon!
If you need assistance or would like to make a booking more urgently, please give us a ring on 08 9949 1201 between 0800 - 1730 and our super friendly shop crew will help you out!
Thank you for your patience!
And once we're caught up on taking care of you, we'll get to publishing trip reports from our fabulous recent diving and Whale Shark Adventures - the Ningaloo Reef has been amazing this month!
Yesterday's dives were so amazingly amazing we just had to take advantage of the last day of lowish swell, no wind and neap tide by visiting Fish Hole again. The sheer number of fish on this site is outstanding - huge schools of big trevally, separate schools of barracuda - split up by size, schools of fusiliers so thick you can't see anything but flashing blue & yellow, masses of five-lined sea perch, sweetlips and roving batfish. Plus turtles, sharks, enormous moray eels. A huge black bull ray swam with us right back to the ascent line.
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 10-15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild to moderate
DEPTH: 14m
Even though the swell was rising a little bit, we decided to try a site we get to dive even less often than Fish Hole. Bedrock is a series of ledges, bommies and swim-thrus that is always teeming with fish, turtles, sharks and rays. The dive was brilliant - so much action! We got surrounded and buzzed by three different schools of fish: big batfish, huge darts and fat barracuda. Glassfish filled caves and swim thrus. More semi-circular angelfish than we could count, from the very small to the very large, sometimes in groups of four or five. Two teensy Hypselodoris maculosa nudibranchs snooped on the side of a ridge, one sticking his head down a hole and waving his little circle of gills at us. Can't wait to go back!
WATER TEMP: 27C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild to moderate
DEPTH: 12m
We took advantage of neap tides and low swell today to hit a site that needs the perfect conditions to access. Fish Hole rocks with masses and masses of fish, beautiful reef structures and the possibility of something totally cool happening. Today we had big turtles, little turtles, giant morays, tiny white morays, schools of trevally, sweetlips, snapper, darts, barracuda (HUGE!), parrotfish. Lionfish were tucked up under small ledges. The largest tawny nurse shark ever - well over 3m with a crazy girth - cruised over the top of the reef, led by 12 bright yellow juvenile trevally and followed by 6 gigantic cobia. And dolphins were zooming through the trevally over and over! We not only got to watch them underwater, but back on the boat more dolphins joined the fun and we watched them for most of our surface interval! A-Mazing!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: slight
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 14m
A northerly was blowing and making things a little rocky on the surface, so we moved down to Blizzard Ridge for dive two. Our pair of orange banded pipefish are still hanging out in their little cave and dad still has his bellyful of eggs. Coral trout were everywhere, mostly hanging right on top of the ledge with a few joining big rankin cod and zooming the small groups of baitfish. A white tip reef shark was getting hassled by a suckerfish. The suckerfish would start on the shark's cheek, then work its way up to his eye. The shark didn't like suckerfish on his eye and would thrash his head and whole body to try to dislodge it, only to have the suckerfish do loop and replay the scene. At one point the shark took to ramming a smaller female white tip reef shark and rubbing his head against her flank. Very cool behaviour!
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 8-10m
CURRENT: slight
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 14m
Labyrinth was gorgeous - clear, blue, warm, active. Big batfish were at the cleaning stations, schools of batfish hung out in midwater. Turtles were everywhere, mostly sleeping. One was getting cleaned by a group of surgeonfish - he'd swim a bit, settle on the reef, get cleaned, swim in a circle, settle on all four fins and rock gently as the cleaners did their work. We stayed with him for about ten minutes and he was still enjoying the attention when we left him. A beautiful leopard shark was stretched out in the sand at the back of the site. Many angelfish, butterflyfish, nudibranchs, parrotfish, moorish idols flashed their fancy colours.
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 14m
Blizzard Ridge was teeming with coral trout, rankin cod, estuary cod, sharp nose snapper and other predators coming in to munch up on the remaining baitballs. Olive sea snakes, white tip reef sharks, blue spotted rays, squirrelfish, a big loggerhead turtle and a friendly stars & stripes puffer. The spearing mantis shrimp is still in the same hole he's been in for months and he's really getting big now. This dive site is always great and everyone was buzzing when we got back on the boat.
WATER TEMP: 26C
VISIBILITY: 10-12m
CURRENT: slight
SURGE: mild
DEPTH: 14m
