Carnac Island, W.A.

TLWR? (Too long, won’t read?) Watch the video of our Carnac Island boat day instead!

👩‍🦰 We’re in the middle of a heatwave, and a 38 degree day with almost no wind seemed like the perfect time to go for a scuba dive! We invited along my friend T, who did her open water diver ticket at the same time that I did, and decided to revisit the spots that Aaron and I checked out on our last Rottnest scuba dive. Since we weren’t going with a charter this time, I was keen to go somewhere familiar so I felt more confident.

The plan was to visit Roe Reef first, then decide on the second location depending on the wind. So off we went on the boat, and the water looked MAGICAL! It was crystal clear, so blue, and hardly any wind at all.

We made it to our first dive spot, Roe Reef, and dropped anchor then started suiting up. It. Was. HOT. It was BUMPY. Boats were speeding past without slowing down - which would have been polite since we had a “diver down” flag! (Aaron swore at them…a lot) - and the boat was rocking back and forth something shocking. It was SEA SICKNESS time! 🤢🤢 Aaron had a great time having a laugh at our expense since he spewed out all his sea sickness when he was a kid, and doesn’t get it anymore hahaha!

Both T and I felt verrrrry sick, and T was hanging her head off the side throwing her guts up while I was struggling into my wetsuit and getting ready to hit the water. You’d think I would’ve learnt my lesson after our Gold Coast scuba dive and taken some sea sickness tablets, but I honestly didn’t even think of it. I will 100% remember them next time after this one, though! I kept having to pause to hang my head over the edge of the boat and ended up having a spew as well hahaha!

As soon as I was in the water, I realised something was wrong. My mouthpiece was leaking air constantly. Aaron tried to see if he could help with it while he hung over the edge of the boat, and I could feel the panic rising as I kept smashing up against the boat because of the waves, so I decided to get back on the boat and abandon my dive. The last thing that I wanted was to have something happen while I was under the water and it wouldn’t be as easy to get back to the boat, and feeling anxious was not a great start either. Aaron and T decided to go on with the dive without me, then I would do the second dive with Aaron, as he is the more experienced diver.

They’d been in the water for literally one minute before they were back on the boat with some scary news…T had seen a shark! 🦈😱 Aaron said that he was fine with a shark being around but, since T was an inexperienced diver, he thought it was best to abandon the dive as if she was nervous she wouldn’t enjoy the dive anyway, might make mistakes, and would probably chew through air too fast hyperventilating haha! Turns out it was the right decision - once I’d helped T out of her gear I leaned over the back of the boat feeling sick and less than a metre from the boat, right at the surface, the shark swam past and made me scream! Once I’d recovered from the shock, I ran for the GoPro and grabbed some footage.

It was the shark that T had spotted! AND…he’d brought a mate! 🦈🦈 As I was filming the tiger shark that got close to the boat, the other one was swimming under the boat. It made me a bit nervous having my hand in the water, so we decided it was time to move on, and that scuba diving wasn’t on the cards for today.

Instead, we made our way to Carnac Island to see if the sea lions were around and for a bit of scuba diving. It was super busy! It’s a popular spot because the water is beautiful, and sometimes the sea lions will jump in the water and get close. I haven’t had a chance to snorkel with the sea lions yet. All the bachelor boys were lying on the sand when we arrived (Aaron informs me that this colony of sea lions are all males, who head south to see the ladies once a year…how does he know this random stuff?), and they were far too lazy to get into the water.

We swam up as close as we could to them (there are boundaries in place because people in the past have gotten on the beach and annoyed the sea lions) and had a bit of a snorkel. I had a scare when a jellyfish touched me and I freaked out, but Aaron assured me that they weren’t the stingy type, which was lucky because there were heaps of them in the water! That said, the water was beautiful!

Even though it wasn’t the day that we had planned, it was still a beautiful day on the water and we had a great day! I might need to wait a while before going for another scuba dive, as I think that the sharks will be the first thing on my mind hahaha! We’ll definitely give it another go, though. Here’s hoping the next time isn’t as eventful haha!