Unfortunately Only a Brief Glimpse

We were all really excited about returning to play with the sea lions. It was a lovely morning, a light easterly meant a few small waves but no one got sea sick on the 15min boat ride to Essex Rocks. The tour was fully booked with two boats venturing out.

On arrival we were keen to get into the water. The easterly resulted in a strongish current and choppy water pushing us across to the left of Essex rocks. We could see the sea lions lazing on the beach in the warmth of the morning sun. Sadly none of them were keen to join us. After being buffeted by waves for around 30mins the girls and I headed back to the boat for a rest.

We watched from the boat, with the occasional sea lion making half an effort to move before flopping down again. Sometime after chatting to our tour guide we decided to return to the water. Making lots of splashes and noise, we had one sea lion who came out to investigate. Only Ella and I were in the right spot to see it.

The interaction lasted a whole 15 sec as it ducked by before deciding to go back to the beach and then it was time for us to return to the boat - our snorkelling time was up! Cheekily, the sea lion did come back out to swim a loop around both boats! We were all really disappointed but accepted the fact that these are wild creatures. They are not fed or rewarded in any way to come out to the boat and today they wanted to be lazy!! 

On the boat ride back to the jetty, we were informed that new laws are coming in regards to swimming and interacting with these wild creatures. Hopefully Turquoise Safari's will still be able to continue offering this wonderful opportunity to swim with these amazing creatures of the sea!

In Jurien we stopped for food and coffee before driving back to the Grandies place. It was going to be a hot last day for us. We compared the temperatures between Perth and Canberra - it was sad to see Canberra's max was 23°C which was Perth's minimum temperature! We were in for a shock!