Coral Bay relaxing day

Finally a lazy day and the best place for it, glorious Coral Bay, first impressions last night while having a drink and watching the sunset were very positive and the hot sun, clear skies and blue water this morning were far too tempting for us to do anything else but lay on the beach and snorkel all day until it was time to leave for Exmouth at 4pm.  Only 120 kilometres so it’s a nice change from the 10 to 12 hours traveling the last few days.

Very nice to have an easy day.  The reef at Coral Bay is about 10 metres from the edge of the water so snorkeling was a breeze. We all spent a long time with our heads in the water marveling at the huge cabbage like corals and every other shaped corals which were refuges to the thousands of multi-coloured fish.  The corals here are different from the Great Barrier Reef corals.  Most of these are 'hard corals' and have very little collour, it just makes the colours of the fish stand out even more than usual.  The hundreds of fish in all sections of the reef make it like looking into an aquarium there are so many fish swimimg right in front of you.

Emily lent me her broken underwater camera to go to Canada and of course it didn’t work so Pam bought me a new one for Christmas.  Today was the first chance I’ve had to use it so the quality of the photos may be a little below par, I’m still a very good photographer, it’s just the equipment may have let me down today….better luck tomorrow?

We used a stack of sunscreen but I’d be surprised if we weren’t all red as lobsters tomorrow.  Maybe a few red wines tonight may help limit the damage.  We all had a pie for lunch from (on Lukes recommendation) the best pie shop in Australia, they were very good, if you happen to be passing this way I also recommend the Coral Bakery pies!!

Pam and Vernon on Coral Bay beach early.

'Red Rock' next to the beach.

Looking down from the lookout at 'Red Rock'.

The scene from the lookout.

Chris and Emily about to swim the bay.

The rest are the photos from our 6 hours of snorkeling.....we did have a few rest stops in between swims but we certainly made sure we spent as long as possible with our heads down.  Sorry about all these, they really are very special to us!!!