Shark, Dolphins and The Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve

H and I spent this afternoon walking around Manly and the surrounding area. We stopped for a bite to eat on the seafront and while we were there, enjoying the tucker and looking out to sea, something really exciting happened. The surf school sirens went off and then this announcement came over the tannoy saying that a shark had been spotted in the water and that it was in everyones best interest if they left the water immediately. Brilliant. Real-life Jaws in front of our very eyes. I pictured an Aussie Roy Scheider sitting on the beach with binoculars and seeing a dorsal fin moving through the surf, then going into a slight panic, and racing to the lifeclub as fast as he could. At the time the water was very busy.

Anyway, this announcement caused a bit of a frenzy as swimmers swam in as fast as they could and surfers, ignoring surfing etiquette, all tried to catch the first wave they could back into shore. Of course there were the hardened surfers who didn't mind the threat of potential limb-loss (or worse) and who stayed out in the swell so they could stake their claim to the empty waves.

This then prompted a second announcement from Roy. This time he sounded a bit pissed off, warning those left out there that they "really should" come in from the beach. They didn't.

Alas we didn't see anyone get munched. Nor did we see a shark. But it was pretty exciting nonetheless.

From Manly Beach we headed round to Shelly Beach and the Cabbage Tree Bay Aquatic Reserve, which forms part of the headland to the south of Manly.

This is the view looking back to Manly Beach.















Whilst I was taking this photo I heard H exclaim, rather loudly, "Oh My God!". Had she seen the shark? No. That wasn't playing the game. Instead she had seen a school of dolphins just off of Shelly Beach (which is to the right of the photo above, and behind us - it's the only Westerly facing beach in Sydney so it gets the sun all day long) and near the "Bower" point break. They stayed around for ages but it's quite hard taking a picture of them, as you can see here (they are in this photo, but only just - you may have to zoom in).















So before we had even got to the reserve, we'd witnessed a shark alert and seen some doplhins. Not bad eh!

I should have taken some pictures of the protected reserve, and I can assure you it is very nice. From the look-out you get a cracking view of the point break (called 'Fairy Bower') and the surfers out there going up against the huge southerly swell. There wasn't much room for error if they'd fallen off the waves in the wrong place.