The Coffin Bay Explorer

Published on January 20, 2012 | ,

For a start I had better introduce myself. My name is Erin and I am the new Assistant Manager at Goin’ Off Safaris.

After starting here on Monday, I have already had a very busy week booking in new trips and playing with the new iMac and today was no exception! This morning I jumped aboard the Coffin Bay Explorer for their 3 hour round trip of Coffin Bay.

Departing the Coffin Bay boat ramp at 9.30am, our guide Darian took us past some of the most pristine parts of the Coffin Bay National Park- some beaches that are only accessible by boat! The running commentary about the earliest visitors to the bay made for easy listening, as we all soaked up a bit of sun.

Our adventure around the bay continued on past two tiny islands known as ‘The Brothers’. The story behind them is truly fascinating, but I won’t spoil the tale before you get a chance to see them yourself.

Living on the Brothers are a wide variety of birds- including Cormorants, Silver Gulls, Crested Terns and Antarctic Skua’s- large, brown birds that journey here to nest on the islands. Also residing on the island are a pair of male Australian Sea Lions, as well as a spattering of smaller New Zealand Fur Seals.

Darian also has an Oyster lease, so part of the tour included a stop at the racks for a brief history about the oyster industry in Coffin Bay- and for those so inclined- a taste test of the freshest oysters you will ever taste! Delicious!!

Now as if the tour couldn’t get any better- a pod of almost 20 Bottlenose Dolphins made an appearance. As we slowly cruised by, they swam all around and under the boat in the crystal clear water- almost as though they were inviting us to come and play with them. Unfortunately Darian is not running swims with the dolphins this year due to the late breeding season of these magnificent animals last year. So instead we admired them from the boat.

We left the dolphins (reluctantly) and began the journey back home. In 3 hours we learnt amazing things about the history of the bay, tasted some of the freshest seafood you can get and saw a huge variety of land based and marine animals! And that’s all in a day’s work for the Coffin Bay Explorer!

This is only one of the many options we offer as part of our amazing tour packages around the Eyre Peninsula. For more information see our website