Monkey Mia Dolphins!

We finally got to see dolphins in the wild!  We tried to see them in Busselton but weren't successful. 

We stayed in Denham for the night and drove the 25 Km to Monkey Mia early Monday morning.  We got there about 8 am and the ranger out front told us it was the end of the first feeding so we rushed down there.  There were lots of people there.  We all stood in the ocean to just over our ankles and watched the dolphins swimming around while one of the rangers talked about them.  At the end people were picked from the crowd to feed them a fish.  Right after being fed they swam away and the ranger said they may be back in 10 minutes, an hour, or not at all. 

The way it works it there is a group of about 20 dolphins that regularly come to this area.  There are three feeding times between 8 and noon but only five specific dolphins, which are identifiable by their fin shapes, are fed and after that if they come back they aren't fed again for the day because they want to encourage them to go out to the open ocean to socialize and hunt for food on their own.  They are only fed up to one third of the total food they need for the day so they have to hunt for the rest.  Some of the dolphins are 30 years old and older!  They've been coming to this beach to be fed and interact with people since the 1960's.

We went up to the visitor center to look at some of the information there and about 15 minutes later the dolphins came back!  We got a great spot right in front this time and guess who got picked to feed one?

This time we saw 11 dolphins and three juveniles were playing and flipping around in the water.  We went and had breakfast at the resort  afterwards.  It was such a fun experience and was only 8 dollars a person.  We were so glad we got to see it.