[Scott] No bird poop on Stef today, however my hair was the recipient of a good dumping. When we say there are a lot of birds on the island, we’re talking about more than you can possibly imagine really. I read that at peak times of year, there are over 100,000 birds here and we’re talking about an island less than a mile long! Anyway, we did sleep well last night, and we had decided before we went to sleep that first one up would wake the other up so we could go watch the sunrise. It’s no problem waking up early here with all the birds singing at dawn. I woke up at about 6:30 (about 20 min before sunrise) and we quickly got out to the beach in less than five minutes (we were surprised too!). It was very nice and a good way to start the day, but this particular sunrise was not nearly as nice as the sunsets we’ve seen here on the island each night. It’s pretty cool being a 3 minute walk to the sunrise in the morning and a 3 minute walk to the sunset at night! We also checked out the turtle nest right behind our room where we watched a mother lay her eggs last night. Stef pointed out the tracks in the sand where the turtle headed back out to sea. After walking up North Beach to Shark Bay for the sunrise, we didn’t discover any other turtle tracks so we quite possibly had the only one on the island right behind our room. We were amazed at how well the turtle disguised the nest. In addition to covering it back over with sand, she moved two or three large tree limbs over the nest. The dexterity of these animals is much greater than you would imagine. Her ability last night to dig a rather narrow two foot hole with her rear flippers was quite impressive.
After watching the sunrise, we went to the restaurant for breakfast. They have really great fresh fruit, and I think between the two of us we’re eating a whole pineapple each day. They have incredibly fresh mangos at lunch, which are my personal favorite. After breakfast, we headed back to Shark Bay and I snorkeled while Stef relaxed on the beach. I was hoping to get a glimpse of some reef sharks and manta rays up close, but there were none to be found. At this same spot last night, we saw dozens of sharks and rays circling close to the beach awaiting the little turtle hatchlings. So the snorkeling wasn’t so hot there, as the coral was mostly dead with few fish cruising around. There is a huge difference between snorkeling on just off the beach versus taking the boat out to the reef edge. Out at the reef edge the coral is so much more brilliant and there are many more fish in those deeper waters. The depth of the water on the reef around the island is only about 10 feet at high tide and about 2 feet at low tide, which prevents the coral from growing very large. Since today is our last day, we decided to sign up for two boat trips out to the reef edge – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each trip will give us one hour to snorkel in the water.
The 11am trip took us out to the same spot we were yesterday afternoon called “Blue Pools”. They didn’t have to twist our arm at all to go back out there. Yesterday when we were out there it was low tide, and this morning it was at high tide that time of day so it’s a completely different experience. Today was even better. The water was so clear and there was so much to see. We saw four or five reef sharks with the largest being about 8 feet long. It’s really exciting to see one of those – gets your heart rate up a little bit! Even though this is a relatively harmless small shark, it still has a pretty powerful look about it. There is such a variety of coral out there - it’s really hard to put in words. It’s all built up on top of each other, with so many different varieties with every color imaginable. Some look like big boulders, some have the look of tree branches, others like huge mushrooms, and that’s just to name a few. The size of these varies from rather small to 30-40 feet or more, and there are many caves and canyons in between all the reef colonies which make it exciting and sometimes even a little eerie. There are also many clam shells, which exist in a variety of colors with interesting patterns - some of them as big as three feet long. We bought some disposable underwater cameras, and we are really hoping our photos turn out well (turns out they didn’t turn out well at all). We saw many bright colorful fish of all sizes. I really like seeing the schools of large fish (1’-2’ long) – it’s exciting to watch 40 or more of these big fish cruise right by you. Maybe our most exciting viewing was of a manta ray swimming through the deep water just off the reef (maybe 50’ deep). I squeezed Stef’s hand tightly and pointed excitedly and she whipped around to see it maybe 10 feet behind her (I think at first when I got her attention and pointed behind her, she thought maybe Jaws was behind her!). The ray looked so graceful cruising past. I don’t know if it sounds exciting, but it’s really thrilling to see these animals behave in their natural environment – and from minute to minute you never know what you’re going to see! That particular snorkeling trip was probably the best of our vacation, and we had so much fun that we decided since it was our last day we just had to go on the afternoon trip as well. The best thing about this place (for us) is being right on the reef. The boat trips out to spectacular snorkeling only take about five minutes!
We had a good appetite after that adventure so we got showered up and headed to the buffet lunch. Today’s specialties were Salmon Provencal, Pork Meatballs, and a Spinach Tortellini. All were excellent, but I just couldn’t seem to get enough of the Salmon – I think I had four or five fillets (which they pronounce fill-its here in Australia). The breakfasts are pretty similar from day to day, but the lunch has been varied and really quite good. I don’t think that they’ve had any repeats on the lunch menu, other than the fresh fruit. It’s so nice having it all-inclusive so you don’t have to find out about a place to eat and get directions or decide how much you want to spend or any of that. I can’t think of a single thing we’ve had to worry about this week, not even if we grabbed the room key since they don’t use keys!
In the afternoon we headed out on the 3pm snorkel boat to a spot called “Hole in the Wall”, just up the Heron Reef a bit from “Blue Pools”. They call it “Hole in the Wall” because it used to have a big archway underwater, so the name was fitting. Apparently a few years back it collapsed when a cyclone passed through, but the name has stuck anyway. This was our fourth and final snorkel boat trip. The afternoon trips aren’t as popular so they take the scuba divers out on the same boat as the snorkelers, and it is interesting to watch those guys get all geared up with their tanks and everything and hear the stories of their dive. All the trip guides are fun people, but our favorite is Paul, so we were glad to see he was heading out since he wasn’t on our boat this morning (that was the only bad thing about this morning’s trip - the guides were – well they just weren’t as funny as Paul). Paul has a real quick Australian wit, and always had us laughing. Anyway, we jumped in the water and had a look around for a bit and about half way through we were taking a break just treading water and talking above water. Stef put her head back underwater for a check of our water depth, and lo and behold within about five feet of her was a sea turtle swimming by. Five feet away and out of nowhere! It wasn’t full grown like the one we watched nest last night, but it was probably a good two feet in diameter (maybe half the size of a full grown adult). I headed off following it for a bit at a distance, which was really fun. They are slow boring animals on land, but very graceful in the water. We were really excited because that was the one large creature we had yet to spot in the water. We did see another reef shark and this guy was cruising around pretty fast looking for food right below us maybe 30-40 feet down. We also spotted probably our biggest fish of the vacation – this one must have been 6’ long by 3’ tall and I’m guessing it weighed over 200 pounds. He popped out from under some coral just 15’ below us and made both Stef and I flinch a bit! It was brown with lots of spots. Another snorkeler, who also saw it, thought it was a Potato Cod. I don’t think they have dolphins here along the reefs, or at least no one has made mention of them. In the winter time, they say this is a great area for watching whales migrate. That will give us a reason to come back someday – on top of many other reasons!
We had another nice dinner. We’ve been getting the latest reservation (8pm) so we can get the most out of the daylight hours. The sun sets just after 7pm here, so it works out perfect. Their dinners always have great presentation, and they give us three choices each for appetizer, main course, and dessert. We had a nice bottle of wine from Hunter Valley with our dinner. Stef had a spicy quail salad that she said was delicious, a slow roasted beef entrée, and the lemon lime tart with crème anglaise. I had a tian of tomato and mozzarella to start that was okay, a pretty good pork entrée, and a strawberry dessert that was unexpectedly jello-like. My meal was good, but somehow Stef’s selections seemed to be much better across the board. As we were walking out of the restaurant, we started talking with an Australian couple from Sydney that we’ve snorkeled with a couple times. We ended up sitting out on the veranda for two or three hours listening to the waves roll in and chatting about differences between America and Australia among other things. One of the best parts of our travels has been talking with the citizens and learning about their culture, so we were really glad that we got to spend some time with them before we left. We’re sad it’s our last night on the island, but it has been a great four days.
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