Madame Cousteau Returns

I dunno what happened, but I think I was hypnotised one night, as I seem to be cured of my diving phobia. As soon as we hit Coral Bay, it suddenly seemed like the right time and place to get back on with it and book a couple of trips. Coral Bay is a tiny little resort in WA which offers easy access to the world-famous Ningaloo Marine Park. The dive operator seemed professional and the reef shallow which was reassuring. I didn't feel the slightest bit nervous, even though it's obvious there are creatures fairly high up the food chain round this neck of the woods. It did appear that everything might be transpiring against my newly-found courage as the pre-dive organisation was highly annoying. I've never been able to bear all the rigmarole that goes with sighting a few fish, but this was something else. The water temperature is still a chilly 21 degrees and so this involved the procedure of sqeezing into 2 wet suits. It's an unholy nightmare getting into one suit, so you can imagine. (Like the marshmallow-into-a-slot-machine effect of forcing enormous oedematous legs into TED stockings.) The effort involved caused the skin to be sheared from my knuckles and for me to develop blisters on my fingertips! Oh, that caused a drama.

Adding to my calm demeanour was the thought of my tank-wanger. This is a ball on a piece of elastic which you put round your air-tank and it enables the wearer to attract attention. The major drawback of diving being that you can't talk. Here's Gimp-Boy putting it to another good use. If there's an upgrade to Outspan, I'll let you know.

When we got to the reef, I realised they'd given me the wrong size BCD (buoyancy control device - this is the life-jacket you wear which you inflate and deflate to keep you at the correct depth as you swim along - very important when you're trying to avoid precious coral, stonefish and stingrays buried in the sand). Then we had extreme difficulty with the strap which secures the BCD to air tank (quite important I suppose). Wearing 2 extra layers of sponge means that not only do you look like a goddess not too far removed from cat-woman status, but it makes you that much more buoyant. So loaded up with the usual paraphernalia, but with the addition of a lot of weight to my weight belt. Anyway, the make matters worse, we were all waiting to descend and I was still floating on the surface like an blow-up dolly (minimal movement from arms and legs due to extensive neoprene coverage). I had to have a few extra kilos stuffed in my pockets (making me 10kg heavier - not happy!) before I finally was at eye-level with the big Spangled Emperors circling the boat.

While I might have started the dive in a mood, my seratonin levels soon began to elevate as the dive progressed. It wasn't the greatest dive in the world in terms of things seen, but apart from quite an underwater current sweeping you along, the conditions were quite good. A shallow dive with a maximum depth of about 12 metres, we went to a cleaning station where we spotted a nice little grey reef shark and were able to follow a cool puffer fish for a while. There were 140 species of hard coral, which I enjoy, but I knew Andy would be finding a bit boring. Luckily this attractive nudibranch diverted his attention. He's strangely fascinated with these tiny sea snails which come is the most amazing colours and shapes (see black, white and yellow version below).

A short surface interval (this is the time you need for all the accumulated nitrogen to escape from your bloodstream to prevent you getting the bends) later and we were on our second dive - a site called "Lottie's Lagoon," named after a massive grouper who used to reside at the spot. Much more interesting in terms of fish species seen. Plenty of Blue-Spotted Stingrays were hiding in the sandy bottom, a nice White-Eyed Moral Eel (who is harmless as he has rounded teeth unlike other species who have backwards-sloping razor sharp ones) and an assortment of pretty reef fish such as this White-Banded Trigger Fish (significantly less evil that the Titan variety). I missed it, but another find was a Sail-Fin Catfish, the likes of which are only found on Ningaloo. Diving is a strange mix of exhilaration and uttmost calm. You just never know what's lurking round the corner. My return to the sea was celebrated with a jug of happy hour Tooheys down the pub.

The following morning we arose early to make the most of our fun-filled day ahead. We were about to set off on a Manta Ray snorkelling trip. These beauties have a wingspan of upto 5 metres (measure it out, it's massive) and are seen year-round in the waters off Coral Bay. A spotter-plane is chartered by the dive company to get us within range of Mantas as the pilot sees them. Then we have to swim ridiculouly fast in order to catch up with the thing. Before long we were gliding over a huge 3 and a half metre giant as he swept along the sandy bottom. They are filter feeders who have no stinging barb.


Unfortunately it didn't surface for us, and the
visibility wasn't that good. Andy was told off by
the weirdo dive-woman for swimming down on
top of it to get a better photo, which frightened
it away and we were all left bobbing in the water. We both agreed it would be so much better to happen upon one during a dive, rather than race after the poor thing in a splashy shit-fight group.

We then did another dive to see just how much money you can spend over a two day period. "The Canyon" treated us to an amazing coral landscape - probably the best formations of hard

coral I've ever seen. But strangely, there were few spectacular fish in this underwater paradise. Wearing only one wetsuit I was quite warm enough and was able to control my buoyancy much better as a result. Conditions were ideal, with good visibility of upto 15 metres and our deepest was 10 metres. Yipee!! No more do I have to live my diving fantasies vicariously through Gimp Boy!

That evening, we tucked into celebratory sausage pasta and we had a nice bottle of chilled white. Given Andy's embarassing fixation with these food items, I have had to warn him that some of the areas around here are involved in Project Eden. This is a wildlife-protection scheme aimed at ridding the countryside of ferral cats and foxes who seem to be destoying other fauna. Cunningly, traps set with sausages and 1080 poison have been set, which is toxic to humans aswell as beasties. At the height of his sausage-troffing addiction, he's been warned. Seems that it's not just sausages the cats are enjoying round these parts. An alarming array of kangaroo meat is available in the frozen section for the domesticated populations!

Four days is the longest we've spent in any one place since arriving in Oz. It was nice to just chill out - the beach was very pretty with (cold) snorkelling and gale-force wind. We lolled on the beach and played Travel Scrabble. Annoyingly, Andy has quickly graduated from hating the game and coming up with 3-letter wonders to winning 9 games in a row - two of which saw him using all 7 letters (for that wonderous 50-point bonus). Travelling is supposed to denude your braincells. Not so for AJM, who's now producing things like P-R-O-T-E-G-E-S. We're so competitive, you wouldn't believe...

As we've sadly missed Whale Shark season (very upsetting), we didn't go any further North to Exmouth as was our original plan. Instead, we slowly meandered back down to Perth, revisiting some of our favourite spots. This has provided me with an opportunity to catch up on celebrity gossip. Andy made me buy Hello magazine the other day and what a read. Not only do we learn that Brittney has produced another child quick as a flash, but Anna-Nicole Smith's 20 year old son died mysteriously in his sleep whilst visiting his newly born step-sister. Bizarrely, I was comforted to see Elizabeth Taylor fulfilling a life-long ambition to snorkel with Great Whites in a cage. If Liz can do it at 74, there's hope for us yet.

If you want to see a film of Underwater Sam, click here.

If you want to see a Lovely Pufferfish video, click here.

If you want to cruise with a Nice Angelfish, click here.







Currently reading: The Shark Net by Robert Drewe











Currently Watching: Nighty Night Series 1.
Written & Starring the utterly brilliant, Julia Davis.