Advertisement
Published: September 21st 2008
..after 5 days at Broome and all the excitement of farwelling our APT Coach Trip friends we re-packed our bags to board the Coral Princess 'Oceanic Discoverer' bound for Darwin!
1800 we departed Broome jetty...it was dusk and the sunset was beautiful, one of many beautiful sunsets to come!
Up to the Bridge Deck Lounge for a safety briefing and introduction to the crew...also a briefing on the following days activities...all sounded good!
Our 10 day cruise was an Expedition Cruise...on board we had 72 guests, 25 crew including 3 guest speakers...a Marine Biologist, Geologist and an Environmental Scientist....each morning a 40 min talk was held in the lounge area for all who would like to go along...always very interesting! Just prior to dinner the day was re-capped with photos on the large screen and much chatting!
Then around 11am we would board 'The Explorer' and set off on an adventure...we visited Yampi Sound, Montgomery Reef, Prince Regent River, King Cascade, Bigge Island, various Aboriginal sites and the Horizontal Waterfalls to name a few....our helicopter flight to the Michell Falls was special...see Keith having a swim!
The day we went to the Horizontal Waterfalls the
Zodiacs came with us...we boarded 4 at a time and were whisked through the tumbling waters of the Falls...the rough waters are caused by the volume of water going through the small opening when the tide went out...all a bit like white water rafting!
Hanging on very tight most of us got back to the Explorer in one peice...unfortunately one Zodiac tipped and all 4 folks went overboard losing their sunglases and hats...back on board they were somewhat shaken and taken care of by the crew...what an experience!
At the beginning of the day they asked who would like to go first in the rough waters...as the tidal flow slowed the water became calmer which some of the folks preferred...you know where we were? Yes...thats right...Keith wanted to go in the rough water!
Walking on Montgomery Reef was amazing, hard to imagine we were walking on a coral reef out in the ocean...it was so big you could not see the other side and the Marine life was spectacular.
On Bare Sand Island we followed turtle tracks to a turtle nest which is like a large round depression in the sand...there we found a baby hatchling
coming out of an egg...we name our new little turtle 'baby Anna' after our Enviromental Scientist whose name was Anna! Later that evening 'baby Anna' was released from back of the ship...a very small percentage of baby turtles make it out to the deep water so hopefully we had given her a good start!
No doubt our beach bar-b-que is a night we won't forget...the food was wonderful and the night sky was full of stars...what else could we wish for on a night like that?
There is so much we could write about our cruise we could go on and on...all we can say for sure is that over the years we have done many great things and visited amazing places...this cruise was way up there and certainly our deceision to go was a deceision well made.
We look back on our photos with much fondness...the enjoyment of our cruise and the wonderful folks on board will stay with us forever!
Enjoy 'Broome to Darwin' Part 1 and enjoy more photos on Part 2...we tried hard to select fewer photos but we just could not!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.055s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 6; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0306s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
