FAMILY TIME ON THE COOLOOLA COAST...

 We had a very early start this morning as we were taking the kids to Barnacles Dolphin Centre at Tin Can Bay for the feeding of the dolphins..

Off to feed the dolphins at Tin Can Bay...

 

We were told to be there at 7am for an 8am feeding.  Even though we arrived around 7am there were still many people there before us.  In fact they only allow 40 people to fee on any one day and there would have been a good 30 people ahead of us so we were very fortunate that we were able to feed the dolphins.  We were so thankful that we made the cut as it was the only opportunity we would have had this visit...

From 7am to feeding time, staff from the Dolphin Centre talk about the history of the centre.  The visit of these special animals to this area  began right back in the 1950s when an injured dolphin beached himself on the sand at Barnacles Cafe.  The locals took pity on him and started to feed him. This dolphin was well battle scarred and became known as ‘Old Scarry’. Once he was well enough  there, Old Scarry returned to the wild but regularly returned to the bay to visit the locals and enjoy a free meal. 

In 1991 there was a lot of excitement at the centre when one of their well known dolphins called Scarry arrived in the bay with a calf.   Apparently the local school children had a chance to name this new dolphin "Mystique" who is still visiting the bay  today which is now the third generation of dolphins to carry on this tradition.

Mystique is the alpha male of this pod and is also scarred from many battles, including a battle with a bull shark in December 2007.  Again this dolphin sought refuge in the cove with volunteers feeding and caring for him around the clock for 10 days. 

Patch  started to come into the Cove to feed after the disappearance of Scarry. She is thought to be in her mid twenties and weigh just over 200 kg. In comparison to Mystique she has very few battle scars and she is throwing a pink colour as she ages.

More recently another young dolphin known as ‘Harmony’ began visiting regularly with Mystique. Harmony is a juvenile male thought to be about five years old. This makes the fourth generation of dolphin to feed with the locals and visitors to Tin Can Bay. Harmony is also quite scarred for one so young and appears to be holding up the family tradition of liking a good fight. Harmony is very inquisitive and likes to check out his human visitors from a distance.

There are nine dolphins in the  pod of Australian Humpbacks that visit Barnacles.  They have all been named.  They are Patch, Ella, Squirt, Harmony, Aussie, Valentine, Chompy, and White Fin.  

Because these animals live in the wild, they can never guarantee that the dolphins will come in to feed or how many will come in each day.  During the week, there were days when 4 or 5 dolphins had been in, but on Saturday when we were there, Ella was the only dolphin that came into the Cove...

The beautiuful dolphin "Ella"

There were quite a few pelicans hanging around whilst we were there also.  They obviously are happy to hang around in the hope of getting some fish also.  I find them quite majestic birds and I am quite fascinated by them..

 

 There are only 20 people allowed on the beach at any one time, so we were all divided into two groups.  The first group moved onto the beach whilst the two volunteers proceeded to tell us the history of the the start of the dolphin arriving at the bay, they also told us about the the actual humpback dolphins, their habitats and diets which we all found very interesting..

The Australian Humpback dolphins prefer coastal and estuarine habitats in tropical and sub tropcial regions where waters are the waters are less than 20m deep.  These dolphins are not known to be migratory.  The live on a diet of fish, prawns, molluscs, crabs, squid and octopus according to the location and the seasons..

These dolphins are more leisurely swimmers than some other dolphin species and do not as a rule surf bow waves.  They swim in small pods of around five or six dolphins and each pod is lead by an alpha male, or, on occasion, an alpha female.  Males have raking marks on their bodies from fights with other males over territory and or female members of its pod.

Willow found all this information interesting and was happy to stand and listen to it all.  Max listened for a while and then he was more interested in looking at the birds etc..

The volunteers demonstrated to us all how to feed the dolphins when we were about to feed them. 

We also learnt how the Humbpack dolphin got its name and that was from the elongated dorsal fin and humped back appearance.  This arises from the accumulation of fatty tissue on their backs as they age.  The also differ from other dolphin species in relation to their mounded forehead and long beaks.    They grow to a length of between 2.6 and 2.7m reaching physical maturity at around 14 years of age and in the wild live to around 40 years of age.

These dolphins have a cruising speed of 4 knots with a top speed of 11 knots. At birth they are 1 mtr. in length between 12-14 kgs and on full maturity they reach 2.7mtrs and weigh in between 150 - 180kgs.

 

 

 

 

 

 We were told that when we fed the dolphins, we needed to hold the fish by the tail in our hand and then put our hand under the water with the head of the fish facing the dolphin.  The dolphin will then come and take it out of our hand so that we don't actually have any physical contact with the dolphin.  Physical contact is not allowed and this is so that we do not pass diseases onto the dolphins..

Once we had fed the dolphins, it was time for us to have some breakfast.  Sarah, Colin and Chloe were already sitting up in the cafe having a cuppa so we joined them there and ordered some breakfast..

Chloe enjoyed Maple Syrup, Bacon and Waffles with ice cream on the side.

Mia enjoyed a weekend away with us also...

After breakfast, we headed back to the caravan park.  The kids were really keen to play on the jumping castle and the playground.  They had been waiting all week to come up and jump on the big pillow...

Willow was certainly getting some height into her jumps..

Max was keen to play games on the pillow like tag...

It wasn't long before the kids had convinced both Sarah and Chloe that they should join them on the jumping pillow.  I think the girls were happy to have a good excuse to relive some of their childhood memories...

The children spent most of the morning jumping.  This was more popular than the playground...

It was almost lunch time but the time Steve had the boat ready to take out.  Sarah was keen to check out the new boat and Chloe was happy to go out again for a fish with her Dad.  They also ended up taking Mia out in the boat with them.

The children were disappointed that they couldn't go out on the boat with Poppy.  Unfortunately we didn't had their life jackets with us, so in the end, Steve let them hope in the boat whilst he parked the car and trailer back up in the car park.  They also went across to the yabby bank and helped him pump and pick up yabbies so the girls and Steve could go out fishing...  Meanwhile I waited back at the boat ramp so that I could walk the children back to the caravan park when The others were ready to take off in the boat across the bay to go and fish...

Checking out Poppy's new boat...

They spent a good half hour on the sand flats.  Max was happy enought to pick up the yabbies for Steve this time out, but there was no way Willow was going to pick them up.  She was happy just to run up and down the sand bank whilst the others worked...

Once Steve had delivered the children back to me, they headed off across the bay to where we were fishing the previous day to see if they could catch a feed.  It was not to be today.  They barely got a nibble.

The girls out fishing with Steve

Happy boaties..

They only managed to catch one fish today.  No nibbles at all.  It was quite disappointing for them.  However, the one fish that they did catch amused Mia who was ready to pounce on this thing that was wriggling and jumping around.  Her antics with the fish kept them amused for the afternoon.

Meanwhile back at home, the kids and I had lunch and then they had a little down time for an hour whilst they watched a movie on the iPad for an  hour.  It was then time to head outside again for another play on the jumping pillow.  The kids were playing tag with each other until their Dad came out about half past three to join them on the big pillow...

It wasn't long after that the Steve and the girls returned.   We ended up having some nibblies and a glass of wine out on the lawn whilst we watched the children go between the jumping pillow and the children's playground...

We had decided to have a BBQ for dinner tonight, so both Steve and Sarah ended up going down to the Camp Kitchen to cook our steak and kebabs.  Chloe and I made a couple of salads back at our cabin and then we took it all up to Sarah and Colin's place and had dinner there.  

We ended the evening with a family game of UNO.  This was a real blast.  Max has not long learnt how to play the game and had us in stitches with his reaction to receiving his hand of cards.  You were left in no doubt when he had a good hand as he couldn't help but get super excited if he was dished out a "GOOD" card as he called them.   His excitement and enthusiasm certainly made out night.

Max and Poppy played together...

It has been a great day with family.  We spent most of the day just hanging out at the park.  These are the times that good memories are made.  So blessed and thankful that they were able to make it up for the weekend..