>Viv and I are have already done some great dives with a whale shark,
wobbegongs, grey reef sharks, huge bailer shells, to  name just a few.<

In the meantime we have returned to Perth. The 15hr drive through the night
was a bit stressfull. For the first few hours on the drive South, we saw at
least 500 kangaroos (not counting dead ones), lots of emus, foxes, goats,
sheep and cattle. Most of the roos tried to jump right in front of the car
or ram one of the side doors. It wasn't always easy to evade them but we
managed. South of Woomeral things got gradually better and we could finally
speed up a bit.

The weather in Coral Bay was mostly wonderful, but strong winds allowed
only a few dives on the outer slopes of Ningaloo. So we did most of our
dives in the rather shallow bay. Which wasn't really a bad thing, since the
bay is full of beautiful coral and fishlife. Grey sharks, whitetips,
wobbegongs were seen on many dives. Big schools of snappers, jacks,
groupers and catfish always seem to be around. Managed to get bitten by a
spangled emperor. Quite a friendly fish otherwise. Saw lots of 'new'
species that I had not seen before, since they only occur in NW Australia.
Still busy comparing my notes with various fish books and learning a bunch
of new (Australian) common names.

Water temperature was between 23-26C. Not problem in my wetsuit, the DS
stayed in the closet in Coral Bay. We were diving mostly as a trio from a
private boat owned by a friend of Viv's.

The exception was the whale shark trip which we did with Ningaloo Dive
Center. The spotter plane found only one whaleshark that day, but we spent
(i.e. snorkeled, no scuba allowed here) about 1.5 hours with him.

On the way back we also stopped at a cleaning station with 2 manta rays,
then concluded the trip with a visit to the resident grey sharks at Asho's
Gap. Quite an experience for the non-divers on board to see so much in one
trip.

As more and more Easter holiday folks arrived at Coral bay, we moved a
little further North to Exmouth. Here we did a great night dive on the Navy
Pier. The highlight of the dive were 3 rather large angler fish. The next
day we did a boat trip up to Muiron Island, where we saw more wobbegongs,
whitetips and lots of other interesting stuff. The winds had kicked up
again so the viz was a bit lower than in the week before. Since the dive
shop had screwed up our hotel reservation, we skipped the next morning's
dives and raced back down to Perth.

Since then we have done a couple of Rottnest trips. Tonight we'll go for a
dip in the Swan river. As that is supposed to be less than 20C, the dry
suit comes out again. The next dives after that are planned for Mindarie
and again in Rottnest. Next trip report will be about those dives.

M