If there is a more perfect place than Coral Bay, I’d like to know where it is.

Here’s why: pristine white sand; crystal clear water that is bluer than you’ve ever seen; a reef a few metres from the shore, meaning not only great snorkeling to see corals and reef fish, but also calm waters; a very small, blissfully under-developed holiday town (permanent population about 300) that’s nothing more than a couple of caravan parks, a hotel, two cafes and a few tour operators variously offering diving, fishing, snorkelling, off-roading trips.

The world heritage listed Ningaloo reef is the world’s largest fringing reef: it extends 300 kms along the west coast from Carnarvon to Exmouth. It is possible to stop pretty much anywhere along here, grab your snorkel and fins and be swimming over the reef within a few metres. At least 250 different species of coral are here and, in total, represent over 50% of the Indian Ocean’s entire coral life. 

Where to start? It has to be with our first trip outside the reef to swim with the humpback whales. Thousands of these whales migrate north from Antartica along the west coast of Australia for mating and calving in warmer waters, and return south for the summer feeding grounds. So there are humpbacks passing by between June and the end of October. Sadly, my lack of planning means we arrive in early September after the whale-sharks have headed off.

However we strike it lucky with the humpbacks. After a couple of half hour snorkels over the beautiful corals on the outer reef, we wait for the spotter plane to call in a sighting. He sees a mother and her calf and we are off to meet them. Rules apply, and the calf must be at least half the size of the mother for us to go in with them, and adult whales can be 20 metres long. Our guides divide us into two swimming groups and we are group two – damn, I think, she may be gone before we get in. The first 7 swimmers get the call to go in and only a couple see her before she dives. In group two, we sit tense and ready on the swimming platform: Swim! the call comes and without hesitation we slide into the water, swimming in the direction our guide indicates. Look down, she shouts. I do, and immediately gasp/screech into my snorkel – the mother and calf swim a couple of metres below me, she bears a fleet of ramora (suckerfish), stark white against her grey-black skin. My thoughts race from Amazing! this can’t be real to, I hope she doesn’t come up under me right now! The following pic is a hazy screen grab from a go-pro video one of the other swimmers took – but you get the idea!

We think that’s it, but the plane calls in a pod heading south. We find them quickly and the spotter pilot says he counts 8 or 9. The boat follows them from the prescribed distance of 100 metres, though at times they close the distance towards us and put on a show I’d happily pay to see again. Breaching, rolling and waving pectoral fins, showing off their flukes. Apparently breaching is unusual behaviour as it’s a high-energy demand: a full breach needs the whale to break through the water’s surface at its top speed of 28km/h. We follow them at 4-5 knots for at least an hour and it is riveting. Apologies if you have seen these photos on my Insta @bevzac56 but it was so exciting I can’t help adding them in here.

We think that day will be hard to beat, but then we go out on another trip to find Manta Rays. Again a couple of snorkels on the outer reef first. These are wonderful as it is a low tide and so parts of the reef are in shallow water and the sunlight illuminates the fish and coral. We swim over massive cabbage flower corals through which hundreds of little iridescent fish swim; watch parrot fish nibble the coral; watch turtles swim to the surface to take a breath of air before sinking back down, lazily paddling their flippers. We stop at the shark cleaning station where grey and white tipped reef sharks come by and have cleaner fish nibble the parasites from their skin. With my advanced fish identification skills I mis-identify a large grey fish as a shark.

Then the party starts – again a spotter plane, this time looking for the ballet dancers of the ocean, huge Manta Rays. These graceful diamond shaped rays are really smart (biggest brain to body ratio of any fish), have no sting or barb posing no threat to humans, and are filter feeders. They can grow to have a seven metre wingspan and weigh a couple of tonnes. this time we are in three groups, again we are number two. the spotter finds a beautiful large manta, about 4-5 metres in wingspan, and we rotate through the groups quickly. Group one swims until the manta has moved beyond them and by then the boat has moved ahead and group two drops in, then the skipper picks up group one, drops group three, picks up two, drops one etc etc. We have four swims and the final two are breathtaking, lasting what seems like ages but which in reality is probably five minutes, if that. Like a big blanket floating through the air, the manta undulates and glides, searching for food. It is mesmerising.

So we get to swim with two out of three of the mega fauna that frequent these waters, and and in the immortal words of Meatloaf, two out of three ain’t bad.