Up North, Episode 2 - Monkey Mia

Monkey Mia is part of Shark Bay, and a must-visit destination if you are hanging around the area. It's appearance is deceivingly uninteresting. Just a stretch of beach with sea shells scattered around and a jetty.

What makes this place special is the dolphins. Everyday before noon, a school of dolphins swim along the stretch of beach, braving human contact in the shallow waters because they know they will be fed. Being very smart animals these guys have figured out who the dolphin-feeding volunteers are, and are especially friendly and close to those holding buckets full of fish.

For those interested to know, there is an entry fee to Monkey Mia. It's $8 per person per entry, but trust me when I say the visit is worth more than $8. This is especially true if you get to hand-feed a dolphin!

Monkey Mia

Waiting for dolphins.

Dolphin. Not shark.

This is one of the guys conducting the dolphin-feeding. The dolphin was especially close to him.

Dolphin goes wheeee!!! *spins in circles*

Human-dolphin interaction!

Throughout the feeding the dolphins were very close to us (about 2 meters away) and they were not shy at all. However we were prohibited from touching the dolphins for safety reasons.

Sadly I do not have any photos of the dolphin-feeding to post. I recorded everything on video, and Blogspot is not letting me to upload the video because it's too long (more than 5 minutes). The entire feeding exercise took about 10 minutes to complete, with several lucky tourists being picked to hand-feed the dolphins. Most of my friends got a chance. A morning well spent!