The Not so Little Mermaid

Shark Bay is one of a handful of places across the globe that satisfy all four criteria for world heritage listing, having important evolutionary and biological histories, unique formations and natural habitats where threatened species survive. There is over 2000 km of coastline, white beaches, turquoise waters, and rust-red sand dunes. Within these crystal clear waters lives a massive variety of sea life from dolphins to dugongs, and from the 'Eagle Bluff' viewing point we immediately spotted one of the reasons why it is called 'Shark Bay'.

Denham is considered to be the main town of the area, although there is little more than a few shops and a couple of campsites. By the time you've questioned if you've seen the main town, you've driven through it. As we had all the supplies we needed, we opted to continue driving and try our luck at 'Monkey Mia' instead. There is only one resort here and considering the value of the name that this place holds, we expected to be conned out of an extortionate amount of money for our space of grass. We were pleasantly surprised. The resort had excellent facilities, & was located right on the beach that was the setting for the daily dolphin visits. Considering this was 'it'. This was where people go when they want to see the best of the ocean and get close to dolphins; I'm amazed it was so reasonable priced. We watched the sunset from the beach, cooked some grub, and slept under a sky of black velvet sprinkled with diamonds.


Soon after we had enjoyed our breakfast, we made way to the beach to watch the dolphins enjoy theirs. The study and interaction with dolphins has been going on here for over 25 years, and the feeding probably started at the same time. For this reason it is still allowed although there are current debates over its future continuance. Whether it was down to the food being offered or the history of these meetings, I'm not sure, but the dolphins here were far more comfortable with playing around and getting closer to everyone than at Bunbury.

After two successive appearances of up to 12 dolphins each time, we collected our snorkels and masks, and headed down the beach to see what we could find by ourselves. A turtle had been recently spotted near a black buoy so we headed there first. After about 25 minutes of no luck, I caught sight of a fin about 40m from where we were swimming. It was too quick to get a good idea of what type of animal it belonged to, but after seeing the shark from Eagle Bluff, I had to swallow my heart before I could speak. I began to think, "There is far too much food about to warrant an attack on a human. Stay calm; an excited heartbeat will sound like an animal in distress and would only attract a shark more." I grabbed Lucie's attention and suggested we should move slowly towards the shore. When we able to touch the bottom we saw a group of fins swing in an arch above the water in the distance and felt sure they were dolphins. And then, as our attention was looking straight ahead, two dolphins swam from the side & came within a couple of metres of us. We pulled our masks on and swam with them for a moment before their interest weaned and they swam faster than our ability. Now we could tick swimming with dolphins of the list and count $300 saved.

The next day we spent the morning snorkeling again, and in the afternoon jumped on board 'Shotover' - the 61' catamaran, originally built as an ocean racer that established itself as the fastest of it's kind on it's maiden voyage. The main draw for this trip was the variety of wildlife we would see, and in particular, the chance to see the (probable) source of the mermaid myth. Dugongs are aquatic mammals that cradle their young up right in the water. For me, this is where any similarity to a woman ends. The perpetuated image of beautiful women with flowing blonde hair must surely be indicative either of how lonely sailors once were, or the strength of the beer goggles they were using.

We were lucky enough to see a total of 4 different dugongs on the trip and just about managed to gain a couple of photos of them when they briefly broke the surface for air. These bizzare looking mammals spend most of their time eating and manage to consume over 70kg of seaweed a day. The problem with this much grazing is that they are very slow moving. Therefore, their defence against sharks needs to rely on something more than speed or agility. With no bone marrow, these creatures are extremely robust & heavy and use their bulk as a battering ram. On top of this, they can also tense their skin to such a degree that a shark's tooth can not penetrate it.

Our last stop before leaving the marine park was at Hamelin Pool where a great variety of stramatolites are found. The problem is that once you have seen one stramatolite, you've seen them all.