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Wowie kazowie! What a perfect Exmouth Diving day to head over to the Muiron Islands, the northernmost area of the Ningaloo Reef.
We started at Whalebone and the rich blue water provided a stunning backdrop to all of the red, yellow, orange & pink soft corals. We timed our dives just right to get the maximum effect of the rays of sunlight streaming through - watching the beams dance over the sand, reef and fishes is completely mesmerizing. All of our usual suspects were plentiful: parrotfish, trevally, white tip reef sharks, turtles, blue spotted rays, moray eels, nudibranchs, damsels, anthias, butterflyfish, sailfin catfish. It was almost like diving in an aquarium: beautiful visibility, fish so close & plentiful you almost had to push them out of the way and the colours of the reef seeming like someone had painted the perfect scenery. Oh, and did we mention warm?!
WATER TEMP: 25C
VISIBILITY: 15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 12m
Keyhole's colour was amazing today, too. The water here had a beautiful green hue instead of the truer blue at Whalebone, but it made the sea fans, leather corals and soft corals almost glow. All of the fish were out in force from the smallest anemonefish dancing on the tips of anemones to big estuary cod patrolling the reef edges. Several small schools of convict surgeonfish tumbled over the top of the reef and mid-sized barracudas hung under ledges & over the sand. Fantastic dive!
WATER TEMP: 25C
VISIBILITY: 12m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 12m
We had a delicious lunch and a big drift snorkel at Turtle Bay and it's certainly living up to its namesake! There were turtles everywhere - often in groups of two or three. Mating season has well and truly started! We watched them start to get frisky from the boat and during our snorkel...it's amazing to see them right up close in the water. The turtle action was so awesome it was hard to tear ourselves away to see all the other cool stuff like rays, sharks, eels, anemonefish, threadfin pearl perch, parrotfish, angelfish...excellent snorkel area again today!
Outstanding day for diving on the Ningaloo Reef here in Exmouth! Blizzard Ridge was hopping with so many fish we couldn't see where we were going in some places. The olive sea snakes are abundant and active - circling, snoozing, swimming lazily alongside the divers, exploring holes in the reef, chasing each other. We also saw more moray eels and octopus than we could count. Incredibly filled with critters today!
WATER TEMP: 22C
VISIBILITY: 20m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Labyrinth was also teeming with marine life. Turtles were scattered all over the reef and most of them had a nice variety of cleaners - shrimps & fishes - polishing their shells. A small school of mid-sized batfish teased us by coming in close and then effortlessly rising quickly to the surface, swinging around behind us and again getting very close to our heads. Big batfish enjoyed the cleaner wrasse on the cleaning stations. Pink anemonefish were being adventurous - swimming high above their anemones before diving into the heart of the tentacles & peeking over to see if we'd moved on yet. The colours today were amazingly vivid in the almost emerald green water.
WATER TEMP: 22C
VISIBILITY: 20m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Notodoris citrina nudibranch
Exmouth Diving Centre's morning reef dives are a HOT DEAL at $135 instead of $165 for the month of November. The reef is rockin' so hustle to get your deal & see the amazing Ningaloo Reef!
Don't forget to check us out and become a Fan of Exmouth Diving Centre at Facebook. Tell your friends, too. If we hit 600 before 30 November, we're giving everyone who books in November for any tour through 2010 an additional 5% discount.
Wow, yes, we are very far behind with our diving reports and other fun things on this blog. We have been having some connection and email problems that needed to be sorted out and it's meant that the blog has suffered. We hope that everything is fixed and running smoothly now, so enjoy this trip out to Lighthouse Bay from a little earlier in November.
We started at Blizzard Ridge and dropped into 20m visibility and fantastic fish action. There were olive sea snakes everywhere we looked including some very fat ones chasing each other along the top of the ledge. The nudibranchs are out in force in every colour of the rainbow. Our resident schools of threadfin pearl & 5 lined perch have grown and today they were grouped up altogether. Octopus were also abundant and quite a few were perched sitting up straight, keeping a good eye on the divers as we went past. The enormous moray eel had his entourage of cleaners darting to and fro as he swayed in the gentle current. We missed two huge humpback whales swimming right over the dive site by two minutes - but it was pretty cool to see them from the surface anyway. Just awsesome!
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 20m
CURRENT: mild
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Labyrinth was turtle crazy today: loggerheads, green and hawksbill turtles all made a showing and there seemed to be at least one turtle under every ledge we came across. White tip reef sharks cruised and snoozed while blue spotted stingrays blew up huge plumes of sand as they dug for tasty morsels, bluebone and small wrasse darting in to steal whatever they could. Again, nudibranchs were diverse and abundant. Big batfish enjoyed the cleaning stations and wafted side to side low on the sand. It was a stunner of a dive!
WATER TEMP: 24C
VISIBILITY: 20m and super clear blue
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
Yipppeee!! Our outgoing email seems to be working well again and everyone who has been waiting to hear from us should have received your response by now. If you haven't, please double check your inbox and your junk mail or spam folder just in case.
If there's nothing there, send your original email to us again and we will have a reply out to you within 48 hours.
As always, if you need immediate assistance, please ring Exmouth Diving Centre directly on 08 9949 1201 between 0800 - 1700 Western Australia time and our friendly shop crew can help over the phone.
Thanks again for being patience during this technological glitch!
We hope to now have time to add some new trip reports and fun stuff to the blog soon!
Exmouth Diving Centre is experiecing some email problems - we have been unable to send emails since Sunday 08 November. We are working on the problem and hope to have it resolved within the next 48 hours.
We are receiving your emails just fine, we just can't get our answers OUT to you! Once we have things sorted out, everyone should have a personalized response answering your questions and helping with your specific Ningaloo Reef holiday plans by this coming Sunday (the 15th).
If you need assistance more quickly, please ring us between 0800 - 1700 at the dive centre on 08 9949 1201 or send us a fax on 08 9949 1680.
We apologise for the incovenience and hope to be running smoothly soon!
Thank you for your patience.
It was a little breezy when we first started out for our trip to the Muiron Islands today but the wind dropped off all day until there was just enough to take the edge off the day's heat. It turned into a picture postcard day.
We started at Cod Spot and there was big and little action all over the site. All of our usual cods & reef fishes were there. A big bull ray camped out in the sand, totally disinterested in the divers. Several well camouflaged wobbegongs rested out in the open and a multitude of colourful nudibranchs dotted the reef. Two nudibranch species were particularly abundant - Chromodoris coi flapping their mantles and the silky looking black with electric blue spots Tambja morosa. A big school of Benito swarmed through the site, their silver bodies reflecting beams of sunlight in all directions. Brittle stars were also unusually noticeable today - their spindly, spiky legs sticking out from under rocks & ledges and peeking between arms of coral.
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 10-15m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 17m
Whalebone was covered almost end to end with schools of fusiliers; they looked like giant waves rolling back and forth as the bottom fish effortlessly rolled to the top of the school and then back down again. Mesmerizing! One of the biggest wobbegongs we've see in a long time lounged without a care - he was very rotund and just over 2m long! At the opposite end of the scale, several juvenile rock-mover wrasse danced erratically across the sand, grabbing our attention with their movements despite so much other action going on around us. Another fabulous fish-filled dive on a gorgeous, colourful site.
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 10-12m
CURRENT: none
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 12m
We cruised over to the east side of South Muiron for some lunch and big snorkel at East Side Bommies. This site never disappoints for divers or snorkellers. Today we had turtles, sharks, blue spotted rays, masses of small colourful reef fish, huge estuary cod, shy moray eels, anemonefish and a school of small barracuda - plus so much more we can't list it all!
Our trip back down Exmouth Gulf was glass and we could see whales miles away. We also had quite a few whales very close to us including one mother who decided to have a little rest after checking us out. Her calf wasn't ready for a nap and slapped the water with its tail & pec fins, did mini-spy hops, swam around and around and under its mom and generally had a whale of a good time entertaining us!
We've just launched an awesome November special for those of you visiting the Ningaloo Reef between now and next June. Head over to the Discussion Board on our Facebook page for all the juicy details.
Been putting off becoming an Exmouth Diving Centre Facebook Fan? Don't wait any longer coz the only way you can get this deal is to be a Facebook Fan!
Hurry - it's for a very limited time only!
Sea snakes have a bad rep. Many people are a little (or a lot!) scared of them and when we list them in our dive brief along with all of the other creatures we expect to see, there is always a little collective gasp and nervous looks. But we love our olive sea snakes (Aipysurus laevis)and really want you to love them, too.
Let's get the scary bits out of the way.
Yes, they are poisonous and their venom is nasty, even deadly. They have two small fangs at the front of their upper jaw and inject venom through these when they bite. And, yes, I did say at the front. It's common to hear that sea snakes have their fangs way way in the back that you'd really have to work hard to get a body part in there far enough to get bitten, but that's a myth.
But olive sea snakes are very rarely aggressive and you would have to seriously annoy one to be in danger most likely. Mostly, our olive sea snakes are inquisitive and mellow. They will approach us while we are diving to have a little look-see before wandering off on important sea snake business of their own. I would never be afraid or nervous of an olive sea snake here on the Ningaloo Reef and have had them hang out with me - sometimes wrapped around my neck, arm or leg - for an entire dive. Sea snakes should always be given respect but if you just do your thing, they seem happy to just do their thing. Don't want them to be so close to you? Simply rise a meter or two and they tend to wander back closer to the reef, leaving you alone.
See, that's not so scary, is it?!
Sea snakes give birth to live young and usually have 2-5 each time. The juveniles have darker olive patterns along their backs and these dark areas disappear as they mature. Most adults have creamy coloured, large scales though often they will retain a few darker scales, too. Olive sea snakes can grow to about 2m long.
Mating season, which seems to happen several times a year here on the Ningaloo Reef, always provides crazy active sea snake action. The males, usually smaller than the female they are pursuing, coil, nip, rub, dart around and otherwise annoy the female as they twist together tumbling through the water and into the sand. It's hard to keep up with them and they often zip under coral or ledges.
Olive sea snakes eat small fish, prawns, crustaceans and fish eggs. They are reptiles and are related to turtles, lizards & land snakes. They've adapted to their fully aquatic existence by developing a flattened paddle tail and the ability to remain submerged for up to 30 minutes. They do need to surface to breath and it's not unusual to see them resting in the sun on the surface. Their nostrils have valves that they close while underwater so they don't get water up their noses.
We see olive sea snakes on a wide variety of our dive sites here in Exmouth. Blizzard Ridge in Lighthouse Bay has them on virtually every dive with Gulliver's and Labyrinth also having them more often than not. Our Exmouth Gulf sites will see them most dives while out at the Muiron Islands we see them about half of the time.
Olive sea snakes are very cool critters that you shouldn't be afraid of while you are diving. Enjoy them as they hunt for food, sleep under ledges, swim lazily along with you or poke at your buddy's fins! Once you dive with them you'll fall in love, too.
A little delay in getting this trip report up, sorry! Sunday was a glorious day here in Exmouth and the trip to the Muiron Islands couldn't have been better. We had a nice mix of divers and snorkellers on board today and all three sites really put on a show.
Keyhole was stunning with bright colours and blue water. Schools of fish including big barracuda, trevally, jacks, and surgeonfish were plentiful. White tip reef sharks were swimming around and around, with no clear purpose but enjoying the day too much to simply sit still. A couple of shy barramundi cod kept the diver amused playing hide and seek, in and out of the shelter of hard corals. Multiple turtles spread over the site: snoozing, cruising along, having a breath. There was some very cool little stuff like spider shells and a good variety of nudibranchs to keep even the most keen-eyed spotters entertained.
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 10-12m
CURRENT: slight
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 12m
Whalebone was equally as colourful today, the sun was streaming through the water column and sparkling off the floaties giving a disco feel to our decent & ascent - very cool! The fish life was abundant and it seemed like most of them were moving in slow motion, no hurry at all: parrotfish, trumpetfish, damsels, butterflyfishes, angelfishes, trevally, juvenile barracuda. Scorpionfish in a great variety of camouflaged colours & patterns were scattered over the top of the reef and perched on sponges. Our coolest find today was a juvenile rock mover wrasse - spinning along the sand, waving back and forth like a leaf in a breeze.
WATER TEMP: 23C
VISIBILITY: 10-12m
CURRENT: mild
SURGE: none
DEPTH: 14m
East Side Bommies never disappoints and today we had: turtles, blue spotted lagoon rays, more barracuda, anthias, parrotfish, convict surgeons, various tangs, southern drummers, rankin cod, coral trout, octopus, emperor angelfish and more!
Humpback whales serenaded us and showed off with lots of fin slapping. Exmouth Gulf glassed off for our return trip and it was so clear we had fabulous views of the humpback whales swimming right under the boat! Dolphins and flying fish also played around the boat - some of the flying fish gliding so far we wondered if they were ever going to land. It was one of those simply idyllic days here on the Ningaloo Reef.
