We've been in the sleepy town of Coral Bay for the past few days and will be here until Sunday when we move further up the coast to the town of Exmouth for about a week.
Coral Bay is a 'one' town. There is one of everything here, and generally only one. The exception to this is tour operators for snorkeling trips with the Whale Sharks. Unfortunately, we are still a week or two early:(. I can hardly believe that we came all this way and are going to miss them (again) by just a few days. There have been a few stray spotting's, but not enough to start the tours up. Once they do start, the cost is outrageous. Typical prices are around $360 to go on a boat and snorkel with them. In fairness, they do have a spotter plane finding them, but there are several shops and I'm pretty sure they all split the price of the plane's service.
Diving ... yes I have done some here. There is only one dive operator in town, so there is no competition. This is very evident by their complete lack of service and professionalism. In all the years I have been diving, I have not seen as disorganized and unsafe a dive shop anywhere in the world. I have dove in some pretty rustic settings, and I never expected to find an operation like this in Western Australia. I dove the past two days with a man who runs the dive operation on a Princess Cruise ship in the Caribbean and we sat over a beer and discussed the operation last night. He knows the owner in an indirect way and will be passing his thoughts along to him, but Val and I may be writing a letter to PADI about this operation before they wind up killing a diver or snorkeler.
The diving itself is good or bad, depending on which of the sites they take you to. The details would take too long to explain, but the good sites featured shark cleaning stations, over 150 varieties of coral, and lots of other fish. They are all very shallow sites (30' maximum depth), but dives are limited to 50 minutes. I have yet to use half a tank on one of these dives. I did manage to get a few photos, but the visibility wasn't too good on any of the dives, and many of the shots had to be deleted. I've logged 4 dives over the past two days, and am scheduled to go out again tomorrow, but I am going over to the shop this morning and telling them I am cancelling my diving with them. Hopefully Exmouth, where there are 3 dive operators, will be better.
Val is out on a Manta Ray, Turtle and Shark snorkel tour this morning. I hope she has a great time and sees lots of big stuff! They use a spotter plane for the Manta Rays just like the Whale Sharks. They are up to 18 feet across, so if there are a few of them in the water, it's pretty easy to spot them from the air. She didn't take my camera, but I'll have pictures of them at some point along this trip.
We'll keep you posted,
Eric & Val
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