The thing about expedition cruising is you have to be flexible, things don’t always go to plan, but you adapt.
- Today’s schedule was all about The Lacepede Islands at the right time of day for the tides. The first Expedition Explorer cruise was due to leave at 9:30am, BUT, the seas and winds had other plans. Rather than the 15 knot winds forecast we had 30 knot winds. The crew tried a test run of the Explorer
, launch and cruise around, and found there were too many risks involved, so the plans changed. An afternoon expedition was planned and our afternoon lecture became a morning one.
We did get a distant glimpse of the Lacepede Islands,
and the gap between them, from our balcony and saw a few Brown Boobies and Frigates fly around the boat.
The lecture was by Ray Andrews, the guest Geographer for our voyage. The lecture was a very broad introduction to The Kimberley (not to be confused with The Kimberleys in South Africa). His lecture covered a broad range from geography to history to geology to first inhabitants to exploration and uses.
The Kimberley : Fact File:
It covers about 6.6% of the land mass of Australia, about the same as Victoria
Population of 40,000, swollen by 300,000 a year. The aboriginals represent about 45% of the normal population and have 15 language groups.
Weather is Tropical Monsoon with temps 12-30 in the Dry and 24-33 in the Wet.
Geology is up to 1.8 billion years old, most around 400 million years.
Aboriginal settlement was said to occur around 60,000 years ago.
Two main aboriginal art types – Wangjira (the current style)and Gwion gwion (the oldest style)
Western explorers date from around 1606, with English, Dutch and French explorers visiting.
Asian travellers had been travelling to and trading in the area for much longer.
The Kimberley has over 2100 flora species including 15 mangrove species, 140 species of birds, including 3 of raptors, over 70 land mammal species and at least 3 marine mammal species and many species of reptiles.
Lunch was an adventure, our server accidentally spilt my beer down my back on my left side, nothing a quick change couldn’t fix, but she was beside herself. I tried to reassure her it was OK and accidents happen. I got back and the guest services manager apologised and offered free washing of my clothes, which was much appreciated. I/we stressed it was an accident and how good she had been, and asked if she was OK. We saw her shortly after that, she apologised profusely, we said it was all OK, and finished having a good laugh.
Lunch was delicious, I had a goats curd tart and Deb had a ham wrap, I think I won. 🙂 (Not that it’s a competition)
At 2pm we went on a guided tour of the Bridge. It was informative and well presented by the Second Officer, George. The company and all its ships keep their own shared logs of the waters they cruise in, giving the extra insights into the ever changing marine topography, currents, quirks, making for better decision making around what is possible.
Around 3pm we set out for our delayed expedition to the Lacepede Islands. The Lacepedes are about 18 nautical miles west of the coast and around 80 nautical miles north of Broome.
No humans welcome
The islands are dynamic, with sand shoals building, moving and didisappearing. Again, making navigation, even in the Explorers interesting.
One of the two Explorer boats on our ship
We tried to navigate into the lagoon of an island but the water currents were very fast and strong in the narrow entrance. We saw lots of bird life, predominantly Brown Boobies, A Brown Boobie inflightbut also Sooty Oyster Catchers, Eastern Grey Egrets, Ruddy Turnstones, Cormorants and Lesser Frigates.
There were a couple of sea Turtles that stuck their heads up, but we didn’t see them, and a few small Blacktip Reef Sharks in the shallows. It was an interesting outing.
The Exploers are hydraulically launchedfull of passengers from deck 3 on the ship
At 5pm we went to the Bridge Deck lounge for The Captain’s Drinks, a recap of today’s adventures and a briefing of what lies ahead for tomorrow (swimming in Crocodile Creek sounds promising!)
Dinner at 6pm, we dined with a couple from Tassie, and had interesting conversations about all things Aurora and travel, an enjoyable night.
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