Ah... we do love going to Jervis Bay for a little bit of a family (no extended family...) recharge time. It is almost becoming a yearly habit! Beach and swimming time for the girls (reading on the beach for me..)... my older daughter will to get away with as little covering as possible, and my wife will chide her... and in the end my wife will get sun burnt and my daughter will be fine!
Anyway, we have been switching up the beaches a bit... and this time, we wanted to visit this particular Boat Harbour Beach on the larger Bendalong Beach for one reason...
... one of my wife's students had recommended this beach... not so much for the beach itself (which was really nice and easy for kids to swim in...).... but for the fact that stingrays would come right up to beach near the boat ramp to be fed and petted by people!
I guess it is a hold over from fishermen dumping out unwanted fish and bait... but now, you don't see many boats using the boat ramp (at least during the holiday season)... and you have a little batch of tourists with little bags of fish bait standing in waist deep water feeding and touch the stingrays!
My kids were a little bit scared to go right in... but even standing a little bit further back (knee deep water)... the occasional stingray would swim right up to us!
I managed to snap a quick photo of this one that brushed right up against my leg. A really weird feeling... like a fish... I guess in the end not that surprising! I was a little nervous about the stinger tail... I guess that Steve Irwin thing got everyone thinking about that!
... but if you hold still and don't freak them out, it will probably be okay... and there haven't been any reports of people being stung! And some people were almost trying to hug the animals (probably not a great idea if they have the chance to misinterpret that!).
So, quite a worthwhile visit... followed up by an entire afternoon of swimming and beach lazing... and even a Mr Whippy icecream van!