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Ningaloo Reef is a fringing reef off the coast of Western Australia which runs for about 200km from Coral Bay to Exmouth and a little to either side of those two locations. The thing that is quite unique about it is that you can walk off the beach to snorkel on the reef and it is as close as 40 metres away. Of course if you had a tinny it would be great as you could go a bit further, but for us we did a drift snorkel at Turquoise Bay which was wonderful. From the car park you walk 100m north up the beach and then walk into the water and drift with the current about 400m down the beach before exiting the water prior to a sandspit where the current gets much stronger. The usual pattern was Cath and Claire (who snorkels in a life jacket and is very confident) snorkling together and Rich and the boys. We all have snorkels and masks and the boys have flippers which make a real difference. We saw stingrays, loads of beautiful fish, corals, lots of sea cucumbers, reef sharks, including a 1.5 metre black tipped reef shark and a turtle. We had a most fantastic time that we did the same snorkel route a few days later. We also did a glass bottom boat tour from Exmouth and snorkeled off the boat and saw some lovely coral, but nothing nearly as impressive as we saw on our own on the drift snorkel. The wind really howls in from the south west here and some nights in this area camped by the beach have been really interesting.
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