Saturday, May 14, 2011

Ningaloo Reef: Diving and Manta Rays


We drove north from the Shark Bay area to a small town called Coral Bay on the Indian Ocean.  This town and Exmouth to the north are gateways to the incredible Ningaloo Reef just offshore.



Ningaloo is a fringing reef that stretches for 250km along the northwestern coast of Australia.  It's primarily known for whale sharks, but I'm getting ahead of myself!


We booked a Manta Ray tour with Ningaloo Reef Dive.  On this tour, we dove once in the morning, snorkelled with the manta rays, then dove again in the afternoon.  The diving was wonderful with very pristine hard corals.



The manta rays were an incredible experience.  Coral Bay is blessed with a year-round population of manta rays.  Using a spotter plane, our boat found the location of these beautiful creatures and we split up into two groups to take turns snorkelling with them.  They were about 6 feet across (some can reach 20+ feet!) and very graceful in the water.  These manta rays were feeding in a "barrel rolling" pattern which made the viewing incredible.


We have some video which we'll add once we have better internet access.  Spectacular animals!

Km today:  532
Total Km travelled:  2106

1 comment:

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    Ningaloo Reef Fishing

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