Monkey Mia

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Thursday the 26 we set out to the nearby Marine Preserve and Department of Conservation (DEC) area called Monkey Mia. this is a beautiful spot where people come to see dolphins. why? Because the dolphins have been being fed here for over 30 years. At some point DEC stepped in and have worked out a way to do this with less harm to the dolphins. No touching / no swimming with the dolphins, they are careful to feed only the same 5 female dolphins, and only about 10% of their daily needs, so that the dolphins still fish and teach their calves to fish... Calf mortality has gone way down.....would everything be better if DEC just quit altogether? An interesting question.... But anyway for the time being they are doing it and we went and watched... It was quite amazing to be so close to the dolphins. We also went out on a catamaran and saw sharks, turtles, rays, but alas, the dugong eluded us. No whale sharks or dugongs for me on this trip to Australia.... Guess I will have to come back.....On the catamaran ride I chatted with a couple from UBC who are geologists, and apparently he hasn't missed a field season in 41 years. So, hello to Mary Anne, Charlie, Joan, Don (Murph-Bob), And any other geoLogy folks from Jim and Mary Lou....what a funny small world it is!



Tourism has been down, and it is the end of the season, just moving into autumn. As an incentive to book the morning tour with them, the catamaran company was including a free sunset tour. The focus was scenery, not wildlife, but we were thrilled to see a Southern Right Whale surface and blow several times. A replica tall ship called the Leeuwin was anchored in the harbour. I was hoping Johnny Depp would appear and call it the 'Pearl' but no.......However, in lieu of J. Depp, we did visit with a young Ozzie couple embarked on a year round drive around Oz, and a Spanish man who had been in NZ for a couple of months, so we compared notes. At dusk I was pleased to see the same planet rising with the moon that has been accompanying my every sunset....now, if only I knew how to photoshop in the whale, breaching between the tall ship and the sunset!

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