Ok, now first off, Ive been a bit slack lately on uploading photos, so I will try to make up for it today.
Yesterday, we spent most of the day on the beach. Zac and I were up about 6am, so we headed down the beach for a walk so as not to wake everyone else. We were amazed at how warm the water was at that time, and wandered along the beach in knee high water. It was then that we had our first encounter….
A huge fish swam through the shallows and came right up to us, less than an arms length away!! Not sure what type of fish it was (I was never good with names) but it was about 40-50cm long, and a lovely pale green colour. Shame I didn’t have the camera with me 🙁
Zac and I returned to the van for breakfast and told everyone else, but I think they thought is was just a tall tale.
So after breakfast, we headed down to beach with all our gear. Standing in the shallows, we were approached by first one, then another and then another of these fish! This was awesome!!
Zac and I grabbed our snorkeling gear and had a great time snorklelling the reef. You literally had to kick three times and you were on the reef!! the water was warm, crystal clear and at 2-3m deep, it was an easy duck dive down to see the colorful fish and coral. I even took both the girls our there with Zac’s mask and snorkel, with a noodle under their arms. They loved it and Jess returned to Mum saying it was “Super Duper Awesome!!”. I even gave Fi my mask and snorkel and she went out for a look herself.
After a fun swim, we got down to some serious sandcastle building. At first, I thought this would be the best castle yet, as the sand was so pure with no shells or rocks in it. Unfortunatly with the hot wind blowing, the sand dryed to fast, which made it very difficult to build. We got a decent castle built, but not our best effort.
After sandcastle building and another wash off swim, we returned to the caravan for some lunch. There was a gentle wind blowing, which helped to keep the heat down, and it was nice sitting in the shade outside the van.
After our bellies were full, we thought we had better go have a look at the town of Coral Bay. That took 2 minutes!!! There really is nothing here but a couple of Caravan parks, a resort (that is also the pub) two small supermarkets and a bunch of places to book tours… My chances of finding work here and relocating are looking slimmer… didn’t seem to be any IT jobs here at all 🙁
We visited the tour operator at the caravan park, and will probably do a glass bottom boat and snorkeling tour to the outer reef on Sunday. Zac and I are also eyeing off the Quad bikes, and we may end up going for a tour on them tomorrow. Zac wants to drive with me on the back, but we are still in negotiation about that!
We also lashed out and bought Fi, Jess and Tara a mask and snorkel each, so we are a real diving family now!! Of course that meant we had to head back to the beach for more snorkeling. The girls are happy just playing in the shallows while we look at the reef. Zac is getting good now, and was starting to duck dive late yesterday arvo. He is also a lot more confident in the deeper water (with dad close by) and that means we can spend more time exploring the reef.
Not sure what we will do today. The Wild Western Wind has caught up with us again, and we had a very gusty night. I hope it dies down as the day progresses, but I am not holding my breath.
I had to sneak a few older photos into this post, so here are the kids enjoying their Milkshakes in the Cafe in Denham.
A couple of photos from shell beach.
and the view from our bedroom window at the Denham Caravan park.
