Adventure Bay Charters - Port Lincoln
Adventure Bay Charters – Owner, skipper and AC/DC fan is Matt Waller, who works with a brilliant bunch of people, both on board the boats and the landlubbers who run the headquarters office. - 21st October and, because we are gluttons for punishment, 22nd October 2020.
Day 1 - Seeing Great White Sharks in their natural environment has always been a dream of mine, so it was with great enthusiasm that I booked the full day excursion out to Neptune Islands with Adventure Bay Charters. They offer three ways to see the sharks – you can get into a wetsuit and climb into a cage that sits just under the water’s surface, or if you have a diving certificate, there is an option for the cage to be lowered to the sea floor, or if you are a scaredy cat (like me), they have an aqua sub that is an underwater observatory that keeps you completely dry while shark-spotting.
Having never experienced motion sickness of any sort in my whole life so far, I was confident that I would cope with whatever weather and swells we were presented with on our ride out to the islands. Unfortunately, that assumption was proved wrong. About an hour after we left the safety of the marina and headed around the foot of the peninsula into open water a few of us began to feel the ill effects of the uneven swell, but even in this situation I have nothing but praise for the crew, as they looked after those of us who were feeling unwell.
Finally, we anchored between two islands, where we would be given the best chance of seeing the sharks coming and going about their business. That was the plan, anyway, but today they did not want to come out to play or be seen at all, no matter how enticing we thought that the heavy metal music blasting from the underwater speakers would be to them. Adventure Bay Charters do not ever use burly to attract the sharks, as this is an old-fashioned way of doing things and unnecessarily works the sharks up in to a feeding frenzy, whereas the bass beats of the music will attract them out of curiosity, and we get to see them as they would naturally be behaving.
A few brave souls from our group entered the surface cage to get the ‘full’ experience. I stayed planted firmly in the aqua sub, but at the end of our time at sea we had not been able to lure them near us.
While we, the guests, were keeping an eye out for sharks the crew were always busy, keeping us fed and watered all day with offerings of breakfast at check-in then morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea all served on board.
So my dream of seeing the Great White Sharks in their natural element went unfulfilled today, but I have not been put off at all. Due to the diligence and care of the captain and staff during the day I will be more than happy to try my luck again and re-book another trip out shark sighting with them anytime!
Day 2 - …and we are back…call us gluttons for punishment. Maybe, but we got back on a boat with Matt again, which I think proves how much we trust him and his company and crew.
This time we were staying in the safer and calmer waters of Porter Bay and Boston Bay to partake of the very gentle sounding ‘Seafood bay cruise’, a 2-hour tootle that took us around some of the fishing industries farms for kingfish, mussels, oysters and tuna.
While we cruised Matt imparted his vast knowledge about how the whole fishing industry has changed worldwide over the past 20 years, out of necessity due to overfishing creating the need for quotas and much more careful monitoring of what was happening in the market. During his talks one of his trusty off-siders was distributing fresh samples of the seafood we were hearing all about. YUM!
On the way back to the marina we passed a sea lion colony chilling out on a rocky island outcrop and then we were accompanied part of the way back by a school of dolphins playing in the boats wake. Another awesome outing, thank you Adventure Bay Charters!
If you would like to have your own awesome outing with Adventure Bay Charters, then contact me to book – npirone@mtatravel.com.au or call me on 0415 300 827.