Kimberley Expedition: Day 2 (Morning)

We had an unusual start to our day … an uncommon occurrence on an expedition!

We got to sleep in this morning as breakfast was at 8:00a! All because the schedule was turned on its head due to the delay leaving Darwin yesterday. When I rolled out of bed around 7:00a, Coral Discoverer was still sailing through the Joeseph Bonaparte Gulf … heading towards Koolama Bay for today’s off-ship Xplorer activity at King George River.

After breakfast, we went on a tour of the bridge. Well, tour is a bit of an exaggeration, since the bridge on this 70-pax vessel is quite small. But our group of 10 squeezed into the space and Captain Josh explained about the instrumentation while Captain Peter, who will be taking over for the next expedition leaving from Darwin, was manning the helm as part of his familiarization training in these waters.

Next up, Anne gave a lecture entitled “The Making of The Kimberley’s Coastal Sculptures.”
She made use of a multi-layered sandwich to demonstrate how the rocks were shaped by the movement of the tectonic plates … the bread slices representing the hard rocks and the peanut butter and Vegemite representing the softer rocks. Her lecture also briefly delved into the Aboriginal creation ancestors — The Wandjina. We hope to see some of the art she showed us later during this expedition.

I actually think it was good that today’s schedule was flip-flopped … moving the lecture to the morning. This allowed us to get a better grasp of the formation of the landscape we would be exploring this afternoon. And it underscored that we are in a region with some of the oldest rocks on earth … dating back some 1.8 BILLION YEARS … a number that is hard for me to wrap my head around.

By the time we were finished with lunch, it was time for us to prep for our afternoon outing.Read more