Blue Angels, Spotted Rays and Coral – Along Ningaloo Reef

Roy Orbison sang of blue angels and heartache. When his own heart gave up at the young age of 52 mine nearly went with it. Cryin, In Dreams and Only the Lonely. Life could be lived through these soaring ballads. The Big O’s own life however was marred with tragedy. He lost his wife and two sons to accidents but continued to produce a stream of beautiful songs until he left us. Sha la la, dooby wah
Dum dum dum, yeh yeh, um, wah wah wah wah, Dum dum dum dum dum dum.

We were floating in about five metres of clear blue water over Ningaloo Reef. Quietly going about their business of sliding in and out of the coral corridors were groups of Blue Angelfish. Their expressions reminded me of our grandaughter Elodie when she was a toddler. Large eyes glaring menacingly at you with jaw set in an expression of severe distaste. “What are you looking at” it said. She is not like that now. A ball of energy and an endearing smile. But that look of inquisition is sometimes fleetingly there. So goes the Blue Angelfish. The odd Blue spotted ray flapped past along with large schools of tiny Blue-green chromis, clownfish and the spectaculer Yellow boxfish. And all this 50 metres off a pristine white sandy beach. We were in Coral Bay.

If Coral Bay looks as good as it gets – it is. A small township operating purely for tourism it boast two campgrounds, an IGA, two pubs, a restaurant and several tourism venture companies. Snorkeling, diving, whale watching and fishing are the activities here and the town thrives on it. The temperatures in winter are late twenties to early thirties. The water is 25C. There are family groups and foreign backpackers everywhere. They come because Ningaloo Reef is just a warm 20 metre swim from the beach. At low tide you can almost walk to the reef’s edge. And we did.

Ningaloo Reef or “the other reef” is Australia’s largest fringing reef system and stretches 300 km from Red Bluff (Carnavon) to the Muiron Islands off the Exmouth Coast. Coral Bay sits about halfway along the reef system or Ningaloo Marine Park. The park teems with marine life including over 500 fish species, manta rays and sting rays, dugongs, turtles – both loggerhead and green, humpback and minke whales on migration and whalesharks. Oh the beautiful whalesharks. More exciting news of these magnificent creatures later. Meanwhile we swam in Coral Bay, snorkeled the reef including the aptly named Ayres Rock. Some 200 metres offshore Ayres Rock is a miniature (very miniature) copy of what is now Uluru but made of coral and underwater. It is a swim to get there but oh so worth it. Home to hundreds of reef fish of every colour and size it is a hard coral structure in a sea of fan and staghorn corals. We snorkeled it each day of our visit here. Unfortunately no turtles (it is not yet breeding season) but who cared. After five idylic days we thought it couldn’t get better. We hadn’t reckoned with our next stop at Exmouth.