Come across this strange creature , it was about 6 foot 6 had areally red face , and baring its fangs , it wouldnt stop staring at me , looked like it had hatred plastered on its face , oh wait that was a shotboarder.
Seen a few massive mantas , and the odd dolphin encounter.Hope to get close to some whales this year.
Lots of dolphin experiences in Jervis Bay with three resident pods. One of the best was on a wave last summer: husband yells 'look over your left shoulder' and there was a dolphin right beside me surfing the same wave - could have touched it.
More recently and on less of a 'best experience' note, was training on the river
paddling hard across a shallow seagrass bed a bit less than 0.5m deep: head down going for it and all of a sudden the board gets this massive jolt from below!!! I look and half a meter out to either side of the board is a giant 'wing' breaking the surface. I had gone directly over a giant stingray very well camoflaged with the bottom. I had startled him so he has come up and whacked his head on the bottom of my board and started flapping his wings to escape at full speed!!! (this thing was as big as a small car!!!!!).
Photo is of a much smaller one but you get the idea!. Change of undies material!
Other sightings while SUPing in the bay - a seal frolicking around about 100m from our little wave, Penguins feeding right beside us, A sea eagle dived, caught a fish and then proceeded to eat it in the tree all within 20m of me.
Oh the joy of SUP !!!!
Hey Mel,
We get the same thing happen in the barwon river but the rays may be a bit smaller.
It does freak yo out the first couple of times and the barbs can leave a dimple in the bottom of the board with the bigger ones
Phill
I swallowed a fly today whilst supping .. does that count as a wildlife encounter?
...was a shweeet mild offshore breeze, glassy waves, and ocean floor clearly visible .. great to be alive (unlike the fly's demise)
Early morning paddles with my son on the 11'2 at Monkey Mia. Headed out early towards Red Cliffs and slowly paddled back with the dolphins shadowing us the whole way back. Great experience. Seen a few dugongs also up north. Been stalked by a penguin on a couple of downwinders at Mandurah.
During the first Palmy to longy coast paddle, I chased and came with in cm's of touching a 5+ Hammer head shark. He either didn't see/hear me coming, or was messing with my, But I paddled right up behind him, and reached forward with my paddle to tap him, when BOOM, he moved like grease lightning. Pretty awesome experience as he let me follow him for about 50m before with in a couple of meters.
JB
Paddling on a perfectly calm day in the the local harbour when a mantaray decided to spoil the serenity by jumping out of the water and across the front of my board! Think I might have even let out a little yelp.......
Any downwind/offshore people had any flying fish fly past?
Some awesome encounters out there...
Went for a flatwater paddle in Jervis Bay - Nelsons Beach over the Xmas break and had a pod of about 15 dolphins including some babies come and check me and my friend (who was kayaking) out. Had my camera but was crapping myself and trying not to get knocked of so didnt get any pics. Amazing but scary as i realised how big dolphins really are. See them out quite often and had a few pass me last weekend there too around 10am but they kept moving this time.
PS Hey Mel was it that massive stingray that used to hang around Husky warf?
I finally get to put a post up here
My sister lives on Coochiemudlo Island, and we all went for a paddle around the island yesterday and i was lucky enough to have a Dugong pop up ever so quickly beside me, poke his little face out, before diving back under and swimming away. It was awsome. We also had 2 turltles swim past us on the other side of the island. Great day, also managed to stay on my board, and catch some runners 
would have to say my dolphin encounter at greenmount... a pod of about 10 dolphins on a late arvo Sup... all came and swam around my board and even shared my wave...super surreal!
Lots of sting rays, a shark, turtles, jellyfish... and those pesky mal riders! :P
