Entry By : Eric and Valerie
Country: Australia
Subject:

Monkey Mia, Shell Beach and Ocean World

Date: March 13 , 2006

Today was about as busy a day as we have had in Australia. We were up and out of our hostel at 6:45 am heading for Monkey Mia. This is a small beach community that is known for one thing: Dolphins swim right up to the beach and are fed a couple of times a day. Now I am not a proponent of feeding marine life since it does change their habits and in some cases can cause them more harm than good. However, this feeding has been taking place for nearly 30 years, and the dolphins are only given small amounts of food so they are still required to hunt for the majority of their daily diet. The incredible part is that they are very fond of human interaction. There is an information center which provides the public with a good overview of the dolphins habitat, needs, predators, etc. The area also has a large population of sharks, rays, dugongs and turtles.

We arrived at a little after 7:00 and there was already a small crowd forming. A volunteer was working to keep the crowd organized and in a straight line along the shore. The dolphins were already swimming around and coming to in interact with the people. They ask that you don't touch them, unless they come up to you and rub up against you. After about a half an hour of lecture about the life of the various dolphins that were there, they brought out several small buckets of fish. Each volunteer selected people from the crowd and allowed them to feed one fish to a particular dolphin. As luck (and a little shameless begging) would have it, Val got picked as one of the feeders. Check out the photos of this and you can see her feeding them.

In addition to the dolphins, there were several large pelicans on the beach which are also fed at the same time so they don't interfere with the dolphins. They are the funniest animals I have ever seen!!! After they finished eating, one of them strolled over to a sprinkler head for a drink. Again, check out the photos!

We left Monkey Mia and headed for Shell Beach. Can you guess why it got the name? Apparently the shells that form the beach range from 5-10 meters deep (16-33 ft). The salinity of the water makes this a place that breeds cockles like mad and the shells just cover everything. The beach is very wide and even when you are in the water, it's several hundred feet out before the water comes above your ankles. On a hot day, this is not a great beach to hang out at since going for a swim is pretty much out of the question.

After Shell Beach we went to Ocean World. This is a small park that is being built by two guys that are passionate about conservation and marine biology. They have built the entire place themselves and are getting ready to open a new tank that is nearly the size of the large tank at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. It's two stories tall and will house several sharks and other large predatory fish. In the meantime they have several smaller tanks and pools with numerous varieties of sharks, sea snakes, turtles, stone fish, and lion fish. It was most impressive and we really hope these guys are successful in achieving their goal.

Finally we headed off to Coral Bay and a lengthy drive. We made one stop for a photo-op along the way. They told us there isn't really a 'line' where the Tropic of Capricorn is, but in Western Australia, there is. We stopped for a few photos before finally arriving in Coral Bay in time for Happy Hour at the bar where we were staying.

Tomorrow I visit dive shops and get some diving scheduled for the next few days!!!

Check back for some photos and fish stories:)

Eric & Val

 

 

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