28 | Coral Bay

‘One of the beauty spots on the west coast’ Coral Bay was described to me as. I would say it is average with a nice beach. We stayed at Ningaloo Club for $30 per night where there was no wifi connection (WA is stuck in the dark ages outside Perth) and only had drinking water from 2 taps at the facility. The water they used in the sinks and showers was taken straight from the ground untreated so it had a salty element to it. The room however was nice and spacious with tall lockers situated at the end of each bed. The bunk beds as usual were cripplingly low on the bottom bunk so I took the top bed which had no ladder (very common in hostels) so I would have to do the leap of faith in the morning hoping not to land on anyone’s curling tongues in the darkness.

We walked down to the beach to see a post card looking bay with bright blue water and white sand stretching around the cove. Coral beach is not very big however we decided to walk to the boat platform which is a lot more baron.

On day 2 we took a 30 minute walk down the beach to a conservation area of the bay where you can watch Reef sharks gather in the shallows only 10m off the beach front. It was amazing to see so many in one place, there must have been at least 30 juveniles sticking together for safety.

We headed back to the bay where the official Ningaloo reef starts. Kristen wanted to try out her snorkel so I watched on from the beach before swimming with her further out to look at the corals and different varieties of shoal fish. All was going well before water seeped over the top of her breathing apparatus; queue the panic. In my attempt to see what was going on I put my foot down lower and cut my toes on the hard coral which sliced me like a knife through butter. This was a text book ‘how not to do things’ scenario. I swam over to keep her afloat whilst taking the mouth piece away from her which had now come completely loose. With Kristen in one arm and the snorkel in the other I began kicking back to the beach in an awkward doggy paddle motion. Slowly drowning with my head dipping below the waves I asked Kristen to swim on her own whilst I encouraged her. I guided her back on course before eventually reaching the shallows again… nothing to see here folks, just a slight drama.

The walk back in was worth it as there were many rays which had drifted into warmer ankle deep water to bury themselves in the sand. They were not shy either and came within touching distance of your feet in a curious manner. Apart from the drama the wildlife was pretty good in the bay and well worth hiring a snorkel out too see it.

#Nature #Beach #Wildlife