No travelling today, we are having a relaxing day on Monkey Mia.
On the beach by just after 7-30 this morning as we want to take part in the dolphin experience if possible . Every day between 7-45 and around midday a group of dolphins come into the shallows near the beach to swim around and say hello to visitors and if you are lucky to be chosen, may take a fish from your hand. The experience is carefully managed by park rangers who ensure that the animals are not being frightened of hurt by over excited visitors and it's all very friendly.
This experience has been happening since the 1960's when fishermen shared their catch with local dolphins. As they became more trusting more and more dolphins came to Monkey Mia, as did more visitors. Sadly the kindness of visitors meant that many young calves were overfeeding and not learning how to survive and hunt for themselves. By 1994 new legislation was passed regulating the interaction between humans and dolphins. The dolphins who regularly visit Monkey Mia today, 5 regular females with occasional other members of their families, are given limited amount of fish according to their size., if they visit for each of the three feeding sessions each day they will still only be given 1/3 of the amount of fish they need so they will still have to hunt for themselves . Dolphins visit the beach regularly but do not always feed, some like to say hello then go off and feed themselves; young calves rarely visit.
Today a group of five came as expected and spent quite some time swimming around in the shallows making eye contact and being friendly. Visitors were invited into the shallow water not far from the dolphins, no one was allowed to touch the animals. It was really emotional Once food buckets were brought down all visitor left the water and watched from the beach. Only those luck enough to be invited to feed a dolphin went into the water. Could n't believe our luck, we were chosen and Mikey got the chance to hand feed a real live dolphin who then stayed around for a bit for us to watch. I was so busy taking pics of the dolphin I only managed to capture Mike's hand in the photo. Oops!!
After a lazy breakfast and a wander around the site, collecting info from some of the staff about the next stage of our journey,it was time for activity two - the cruise aboard the catamaran 'Shotover'.
We were welcomed aboard by Skipper Harvey and his crewman son Lane; after a few formalities regarding safety we were off out into the ocean . The skipper obviously knows these waters very well and while we enjoyed the sun and beautiful breezes, it was 32 degrees on land, they began looking for various animals for us to wed. There has apparently been a shortage of visits from the various animals over the last few days, something to do with wind direction. We were just enjoying being out at sea, any animals were a bonus. There were a few dolphins come to playing the slip stream of the boat for a time but they eventually fell tired and disappeared. The hunt was on asHarvey wanted to show us the Dugan that live out in the ocean, large sea mammals who live on sea grass. We got tantalising glimpses of several as they came to the surface to breath, but they were quite elusive. Finally one came close and although hard to photograph we have a great view of this lovely creature. This one was much more up for playing with the boat but Harvey was disappointed that he could not show us more animals. That is the problem with wild things, they don't always do what you want them to or be where they are expected. But we had a lovely time and when we reached the shore decided to take the sunset cruise too. The water lapped gently against the boat as we moved further from the shore, it was so peaceful and the sunset was amazing.
What a fantastic day!