This cute sand-dragon is not nearly as scary as what lurks in the waters at Byron Bay...so yeah, special thanks to the jackass kayak tour guide who told me it would be perfectly safe for me do a long-distance swim at Byron Bay. I later found this recent article about three massive great white sharks being spotted in Byron Bay in the space of two hours.Yeah. Perfectly safe.
Luckily for me, if there was a Jaws anywhere near me, he (or she) left me alone to do my thing, which was a very nice 4km swim that took me about two and a half hours (with a lot of rest breaks). The most amazing part of this swim was that I was joined by far more agreeable company than the great Mr. (or Ms.) White -- that is, by a couple of humpback whales! How cool is that!
I was hanging out fairly far from shore, treading water and being lazy, enjoying the sunshine. It got boring after awhile so I headed back in toward shore. After a few minutes I popped my head up to see a bunch of people standing on the beach pointing behind me. So I turned to look and I saw a big spray of water and a dorsal fin of a humpback, followed by a second one. Two humpback whales, maybe 100-200 yards away! Not too far from where I had been treading water -- in fact, I'm pretty sure if I had just stayed put and waited a few minutes, they may very well have passed right by me.
Although I was wayyyy further out than all of the other swimmers, I was still relatively close to shore, so it was pretty amazing that the whales came so close in. I'd like to think they saw me and were insanely curious about what an awesome specimen of the human race I am. However, I doubt it, as I later heard that surfers had been routinely seeing the humpbacks come that close to shore in recent days.
Bah.
Anyway, it was still an amazing sight.
In addition to my long swim, I did a sailing trip and a kayak trip and got to see more humpbacks on both of those -- but at a much greater distance. Nothing nearly as incredible as being right there in the water with them.
...That is, if I could just forget about those great white sharks.
Maybe if I wore this amazingly awesome swim cap it would scare them off!!
And here are my Byron Bay pics.
Kayak trip -- that's me up front:
Looking back toward the lighthouse:
Me resting up front, letting Rob do the paddling (we're in the orange kayak):
I swear I paddled a little bit at least. Maybe.
Rob and I catch some waves on our way back into shore:
The rest of the group:
Back on dry land:
Main Beach:
Whales in front of the lighthouse (see the little dorsal fin?):
Whale!:
Julian Rocks:
Bird colony on Julian Rocks:
Two whales swimming next to each other:
If you look close, you can see a New Zealand fur seal who somehow got lost and ended up in the wrong country. (Typical kiwi.)
Sand art:
Byron Bay at sunset:
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