Overview
- Features: 2.5-hr cruise to view dolphins, dugongs and other marine life in their natural habitat and a visit to a pearl farm
- Opening Times: 10:30am, daily
- Best Time to Visit: September to November
- Duration: 2.5 hours
- Travelled By: Rental car
- Cost: $86 adult, $42 child
- Address: Monkey Mia, Shark Bay, Western Australia
- Type: Sailing
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Summary
One of the best ways to explore the waters of Shark Bay is to take one of the Monkey Mia tours on the Aristocat 2 or Shotover sailing vessels. Over two and a half hours, expect to see many marine wildlife including dolphins and dugongs as well as pay a visit to an Oyster Farm where you can learn all about how oysters are bred and sold in Western Australia.
Monkey Mia Tours: Yacht Cruising
We decide to take the Perfect Nature and Pearl Farm Cruise on the Aristocat 2, a 2.5-hr exciting wildlife sailing cruise that takes us into the Restricted Dugong Zone in world famous Shark Bay World Heritage Area. As an added bonus on the 10:30am cruise, we visit a pearl farm to learn from the locals about how they cultivate pearls.
There are numerous dolphins around and spotting them is easy. A few decide to ride the waves alongside our yacht and it is exhilarating to watch them swimming alongside the bow of the yacht.
Spotting dugongs is a different matter. They are not as friendly as dolphins and only come up to the surface for a second to breathe before diving down to the bottom to feed on sea grass. We were lucky enough to spot a mother and her calf swimming some distance away from our yacht.
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A visit to the Blue Lagoon pearl farm is an added bonus on the trip. This part of the trip is quite informative as not only do we learn how pearls are cultivated, we also get to see the pearls embedded with gold nuggets and precious opals.
We are taken onto the Sea Lab pontoon to watch seeding, cultivating and harvesting of pearls, and learn about other facets of this industry. Gold nuggets and opals mined from within the earth of outback Australia, are cut, polished, shaped and sent to the pearl farm. Blue Lagoon Pearls then implant the solid opal or gold nugget into a home-bred pearl oyster shell. Over the next fourteen months the pearl continues to grow, gradually engulfing the opal or nugget to produce a naturally unique gem.
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They take us into a small room at the back of the pontoon to show us their collection of pearls for sale. You can buy Black Lip and Albina pearl shell souvenirs and exquisite pearl jewellery however they start at a few hundred dollars. Whether you buy any or not, it is an eye opener just to check out their amazing collection of pearls.
Aristocat 2 also has a boom net at the back of the yacht if you’re game enough to get wet. We weren’t but it was fun watching the kids get wet and wild on the boom nets. We return to the Monkey Mia beach in time as the sun is high up in the sky and we wouldn’t want to be on an open air yacht in the middle of the ocean at this time of the day.
We enjoyed the yacht cruise, thanks for the recommendation.