A Day Trip to Baird Bay | Swimming with Sea lions and Dolphins
She let out a scream as she slipped and landed on her bum. Going down the stainless wet steps should have been easy if she had held the rails and slipped into the sea facing the boat like everyone else had.
The sky was cloudy and the sea was cold, but not as cold as usual for this time of year. The tour group of ten were now all bobbing about in their wetsuits, snorkels up and faces down in the water when the first fins appeared.
Three dolphins and five sea lions approached the group.
It was the first time that Finchy had seen the two mammals appear at the same time. The dolphins were two adults and a baby under a year old and all the sea lions were pups and mostly male. The adults were lolling about on the beach less than a kilometre from the boat but you could still see them and a flock of gulls quite easily on the head land.
Finchy hadn’t swam with his favourite creatures for over ten years but slipped straight back into tour guide mode leading the group that consisted of five female year 12 students, three young blokes traveling the Nullarbor in a combi, and our friend Jillie into a clear rock pool.
He swam with confident strokes over the shallow sea grass and sandy bottom to the old spot he knew was good for interacting with the wild sea lions. Allan and Trish had said earlier that morning that it had been a good year for new pups and that they are particularly playful this year.
Baird Bay in South Australia is an isolated piece of coastline on the Eyre Peninsula.
Trish and Allan Payne made this their home more than 26 years ago and through their passion for the protection of the sea lions and dolphins that live there, have developed an interactive tour with wild animals without feeding them. They have been swimming with sea lions and dolphins almost every day but have shortened the tour season avoiding the colder months.
Finchy worked for Nullarbor Traveller, criss crossing from one side of Australia to the other twice a fortnight for two years. He would leave either Adelaide, or the return trip from Perth with up to 22 passengers taking them on guided camping tours across the Nullarbor. The name Nullarbor means no trees, null arbour.
“This is a trip of extremes. You’ll experience extreme distance, extreme weather, extreme flies and extreme beauty”.
“ The most direct route is 3000 kms from Adelaide to Perth,” Finchy would tell the passengers who were mostly international visitors wanting to experience Australia’s remoteness. He explained to them on the first day out, “This is a trip of extremes. You’ll experience extreme distance, extreme weather, extreme flies and extreme beauty”. At the end of each trip he would always have passengers come and say to him those words were certainly true of what they had experienced.
Finchy has always been a strong swimmer and swimming with the sea lions and dolphins each trip, over and back, was certainly a perk of the job for him. Getting back in the water this time he was looking for his little mate who Alan had named Turbo. He had interacted with Turbo many times years before. The sea lion pups can be very playful, like puppies and Turbo would duck dive and tease and chase Finchy under the water.
The sea lions were quite interested in Finchys beard he said, “Maybe because they have whiskers too”. Alan said he hadn’t seen Turbo for some years and expected he’d been injured and not made it.
Australian sea lions have a lifespan of between 17 and 25 years.
Back on board the five student girls, their two teachers, the young combi driving travellers and Jillie were shivering, lips blue from the cold. Coming out of the water dripping wet and in the breeze they were chilled even with full wetsuits on. Allan dished out blue coffee mugs to everyone then filled them to the brim with steaming hot milo from a thermos. The girls were full of chatter as they sipped their drinks and nibbled coffee biscuits.
“Did you see that one that came right underneath me, did you see that one go under the boat?” The excitement in the boat was like they had all just bungee jumped for the first time, completely gob smacked and amazed at the experience they had just had.
“Check this out,” yelled one of the combi crew, “talk about the Pied Piper”. Everyone leered starboard and saw Allan who had silently stripped his shirt off and slipped into the water and was swimming between the boat and the shore with half a dozen sea lion pups in tow.
For 500 metres they splashed, circled and dived around Allan as he swam, happy to be in the company of someone who truly understands them.
