Stephane's thoughts corner…

Stephane Bailliez's thoughts on everything

I decided this morning to join a Whale watch tours with Naturaliste Watchers (A$45) in Dunsborough (between Busselton and Margaret River). Once I arrived in the car park, I was coincidently joined by Karl, the german yoga teacher I met in Bunburry and we all jumped on the boat. We have been able to see a few humbpack whales around Cape Naturaliste, but nothing extraordinary. A couple of tail flapping (I missed all the shots and I will be better off with a 300mm anyway) but nothing really awesome.
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Before leaving from Bunbury I went early morning to the Dolphin Discovery Centre, or more exactly the beach facing it. This is the place where dolphins are sometimes coming. I went there to check the water, as you can ‘float’ (no real swimming authorized) if dolphins are around. But visibility was crap so I was not very tempted to try. That said, the dolphins came a few minutes later (no shots sorry) only for a couple of minutes and then went away.
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I’m right now staying in Bunbury which is well known for being able to swim with dolphins when you can do it, that is: not now. Bunburry is located about 200km south of Perth, so as you can see I have been driving a bit since yesterday as I was 250km north . I stopped along the way to Whiteman Park slightly north of Perth to take some pictures of some koalas and was briefed extensively by a cool ranger about Victorian koalas.
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I finally took a car at AVIS, a compact Hyundai Getz which is a joy to drive and I have been driving 250km north of Perth to spend the night at a place called Cervantes. Cervantes as you all know, is famous for its pinnacles and …stromatolites at Lake Thetis. Before you hit Google to figure out what is a stromatolite, it is simply the oldest known fossils and is formed by photosynthesizing microbial communities such as cyanobacterias. This is damn exciting. I know .
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I sent back the DS50 to Ikelite this morning via FedEx and hope for a quick repair and as you can see I also uploaded some pics from the liveaboard. I also contacted DEPP to see what’s going on about the camera flood claim as there is still no news after a month and I have had no replies to a couple of emails. I had a reply from the CEO as I put him in CC telling me he will look at it first time as he happens to be in the right office today. Good news as every communication with him has always be fruitful but I hate doing that.
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