Coral Bay

After reluctantly departing the Ningaloo region we made our way south to Coral Bay, only a short drive which was good. We spent three nights at the People's Choice Park which was busy but clean and well kept.

The bay itself is great for kids with a shallow section only knee deep for about 50 meters before a drop off to the coral reef full of snapper. The days were spent at this beach with the entertainment being our new toy that we purchased from the park owner. I took the kids out for a paddle (one at a time) then Ves had a go, after that the adults couldn't get a look in, the kids took over, Zoe picked up the paddling very quickly.

Codi feeding the snapper with her tuna sandwich.

At 3:30 each day they have the "official" fish feeding which brings in dozens of snapper and some emperors into the shallows, they swim through your legs as the kids drop the pellets in. Just need to fashion a pellet fly and sneak down under the cover of darkness for some great fun!

Zoe had a trick to feeding the fish amongst the crowd of tourists.....

On our last day I joined the annual fishing comp for the day. The boat took us two hours out into the ocean for some deep sea fishing with Alvey winches. The morning started quietly for me as I was not used to the striking by hand then getting the fish onto the Alvey...actually it wasn't until I got a bite that I realized it was actually my first bite. The locals were doing well, some with four good fish before I'd landed one. Then bang! I got a ripper Red Emperor at 70cm, the first red of the day on the boat, easily winning the comp. The charter moved us around to six different spots during the day and with two minutes to go I was still chip leader for the annual event. We were told to bring our lines in and my bait was on the deck, we were just waiting for one guy to bring his line in.....his line held a 10kg red emperor measuring 80cm, he landed the monster and the trophy for the day. The crew filleted the fish back at the cleaning station and we had the presentations. I received a charter jumper for second place and a regular received the trophy, lucky because it was massive. They barbecued some of the fish frames and wings for our dinner which was really delicious. We now have a freezer full of great table fish.

Meanwhile Back at the ranch the kids enjoyed another day at the beach with the yak and their friends. Vesna was quite happy that we managed to install the wheel on the back of the kayak for transporting all of the bits and pieces to and from the beach.

They did get a local visitor come through their set up, it was a good thing Ves was warned as it approached as it would have walked right next to her from the bushes, that would have been hilarious.

Probably left Coral Bay too early, could have stayed for a week, oh well another time, this is in Vesna's top three spots of the trip.