The coast around Port Stephens and the bay is protected as a marine park. This makes it a great dive site and good for snorkeling. We did one snorkeling session yesterday and decided to head back to the same place today – Fly Point. We had to go there around high water because of the tidal streams, so we headed down shortly after 8.30am aiming to hit slack water with minimal current.
While we were in the water just putting fins on, two dolphins swam close past. While we were only standing up to our waists in water, we still reckons that we can claim to have been ‘swimming with dolphins’! Once we did start swimming, we once again saw loads of fish. I also saw a very small shark darting in and out of the sea grass. I would love to tell you what all the fish were, but we don’t know. However, there were loads of them and they were fascinating to watch.
We then headed back to the apartment. We have a full one bedroom apartment here and the apartments are all laid out in an oval with a car park in the middle of the oval and a swimming pool running in a loop round the outside of the apartments. We did swim right round it yesterday, but were were the only ones daft enough to do that – firstly because it is a long way and secondly because it is only 0.9m deep, so we could have walked all the way instead!
Mid-morning we headed into town via the Gan-Gan lookout. This is the first time it has been worth heading to a lookout because of the smoke haze most days. However, this morning it all cleared (change in wind direction!) and we had a great view from the lookout. It would be nice to do a walk up Tomaree Head to see the view from the other end of the peninsula, but the national parks are all closed at the moment because of the state of emergency throughout New South Wales.
In the afternoon we pottered around the southern beaches – went for a swim at Boat Harbour (a bizarre name for a beach which doesn’t have a boat harbour!) and walked a little way along one mile beach, however long that was …..