Only accessible by boat, we travelled 370 kilometres from Broome, Western Australia to visit this infamous reef holes. We had to time our travel to Montgomery Reef carefully as the tides play a very important role. This place in the Kimberley region of Western Australia has one of the biggest tides on earth. The reef gets engulfed with ten metres of seawater and at low tide, it appears as if the reef rises out of sea.
David Attenborough voted this as one of most spectacular natural wonders of the world for its diverse and pristine marine life, this place is simply INCREDIBLE!!!! The marine life is so easy to appreciate with the corals and sea life surrounding us left, right and centre. The pool that we snorkel in would not have ever had a human being swim in it.
We time the tide so we arrive on the dropping tide. We make sure we still have at least, a couple of hours to get to the nearest small pool to snorkel in. This allows us to access these beautiful blue reef holes and witness all the amazing fish life for a small period of time before the tide comes rushing back in. We are always very aware that salt water crocodiles inhabit this area, so we always use our drone to survey the blue holes before we dive in. We arrive knee-deep in water and by the time we started snorkelling, the water had gone down ankle-deep. Margie records her reef walk with some amazing discovery including finding a purple star fish. She gets to play with a clam fish with water and walk next to a conch shell that looks like it's a extra-terrestrial being!
The variety of corals and fish was mind-boggling. There were so many fish to see including hundreds of fusilier fish, coral trout, spanish flag, angel fish, rock cod, mangrove jack, damsel fish, blue bone (black spot tusk fish) to name a few. A very big rock cod was watching Ricky and it looked like curiosity was getting the better of him. Ricky was able to catch a green turtle asleep underneath a big bommie. He also got to follow tawny nurse sharks in both the smaller and bigger blue holes and where the water was rushing out the reef. When we finished snorkelling two blue holes, we were waist-deep in water.
We had to travel at least an hour out to go camping at a beach where Ricky cooks our catch from the previous day: Golden Snapper and Saddle tail Snapper. We wrap our potatoes in foil and cook it in the hot coals. On a bed of fresh spinach, we have fried fish for dinner, potato with butter, mayonnaise and sprinkles of fried garlic....yummmmm! We end our night with a beautiful and mesmerising campfire.
29 авг 2024