15 September 2005 (Day 10)

No scuba diving today – but we still went snorkelling. We awoke at 6:30am so that we could head off early to Turquoise Bay again. We stopped off at Exmouth Dive to see if we could grab the wetsuits we’d be using, which they kindly agreed.
We headed off down the coastline to Turquoise Bay, arriving at about 9am. On the way out an eagle landed on the side of the road, but took of before we could get a camera.
Last time we snorkelled at Turquoise Bay, was on the eastern side. Today we did the drift dive along the western coast side, which is a drift snorkel.
We walked about 200 metres down the beach, geared up and entered the water. There was something dark in the water about 50 metres off which was moving, but we didn’t get anywhere near it – was it a manta ray?
We swam out into the current and it started moving us towards the point and then out through the reef and into the Indian Ocean. Heaps and heaps of fish. Nothing new, just more of them – actually, one new fish – a Bird Nose Wrasse. We saw five turtles – one of which Daniel was able to pat on the carapace a couple of times, two blue spotted lagoon rays and a couple of sailfin catfish. There was the most amazing colours of coral – blue, yellow, pink.

The swim back in against the current was tough and we ended up about 400 metres down from where we started, having swum out about 150 metres.
Exhausted, we decided to go over to the relatively calm waters of the eastern side of the bay. The visibility was not as good (5 metres compared to 20 metres) and the fish weren’t as spectacular as the other day, but it was still great!
Time was up. We had to race back to make a Humpback Whale Tour, but there was just enough time to take a few photos, stop off at a Turtle Centre (which turned out to be a viewing area for turtles laying eggs in October) and have lunch.
We made it back to the dive shop and rinsed our gear before bagging it again for the Humpback Whale Tour.
Every day we’ve gone out we’ve seen Humpback Whales. Daniel has become proficient at seeing whales before anyone else, and it was the same again today. Whilst talking to Ben, the dive instructor, he saw a whale dive through the water with a calf. Before too long the boat was tracking these two as they simply swam along. Daniel decided that there were only so many photos of humps that you can have.
In the distance another whale surfaced, going in the other direction, then in the distance a whale shot out of the water, breaching. We gave up the mother and calf and took off after the breaching whale.
When we got there it turned out to be three whales. Whales breach, apparently, to show off to potential mates, so the three males would have been a bull, a younger male and a female.
There were a few more breaches and fin flapping. Great photo opportunities. When the whale breached, Daniel was able to shoot two or three shots at a time. Hopefully some of them turned out. Others on the boat used digital cameras and as they have a lag, then they probably didn’t get as good a shot!
We then went for a snorkel, but the visibility was about two or three metres. We cut our snorkel short as there was nothing to see with such poor visibility. As the boat turned for the mooring, a manta ray was spotted at the surface. We could just make out the dark patch below the surface.
When we arrived back at the dive shop we had a phone message from Skywest. Helen phoned and found out that they had changed our flight on Monday – from 2:30pm to 11:45am.
This is really bad because we have to wait 24 hours before flying after diving. We are scheduled to dive at Murion Islands on Sunday, which is a full day dive – with second dive ending about 2pm. That was fine, until they changed our flight. Now we’ve got to decide if we cancel the dive, do only one dive or risk having two dives.
Tacos for dinner tonight. Yum! But an early night again. All this sun, water and physical activity.
Tomorrow we dive on the Reef again.