Kimberley Expedition: Final Day

Our final destination of the expedition was the Lacepede Islands. To get there, Coral Discoverer left the protected inland waterways for open waters … a rockin’ and rollin’ kind of transit overnight that lasted well into today. So much so that we wondered if we would be able to even stop at the Lacepedes as planned.

Our morning on the ship was a quiet one, allowing me some much needed “introvert battery charging time.” There was a trivia session after breakfast, but we skipped it. Using the time, instead, to pack our checked bags for tomorrow’s flights.

Our Lacepedes outing was scheduled for noon, so lunch was at 11:00a. About half an hour into our meal, Katie announced that we would be delaying a bit to let the wind die down further. The seas had already moderated quite a bit, so we kept our fingers crossed the wind would follow suit. It did.

Around 12:15p, we got the 15-minute call to present ourselves at the Xplorer. Yay! Expecting that the ride across to the Lacepedes would be a splashy one, the clear plastic window covers had been brought down on the port side of the boat. The good news is that the ride wasn’t very splashy, and once we got to the islands, the covers were rolled back up to give us better viewing.

The Lacepedes are a series of low-lying islands known for having the world’s largest colony of brown boobies … 18,000 breeding pairs. Other species also nest here, but today it was all about the brown boobies. We’d been seeing them flying about all day, so I was excited to see them onshore. The Xplorer found an opening to get us into the calmer waters of the lagoon and we cruised along the shoreline to see what we could see.

Once the zodiacs arrived, we then went for a closer look. Unfortunately, with the delayed departure, the tide was already going out and even the zodiacs were having trouble approaching the shoreline. Nonetheless, we got to see quite a bit of the abundant birdlife. In addition to the brown boobies, we saw sooty oystercatchers, terns, gulls, and a small flock of Australian pelicans. The lesser frigatebirds joined the fray in the skies above us, their distinctive shape making it easy to identify them.

There were critters to see in the water as well … primarily, green sea turtles and a lightning-fast shovelnose ray that came around twice to take a look at us before zooming away.

Everyone did get a chance to go out in the zodiacs, but our Xplorer driver was keeping a close eye on the depth of the lagoon and was a little antsy. Understandable. If we didn’t manage to get out of the lagoon before the depth became too low for the boat, we’d be stuck until high tide. The good news is that we didn’t — get stuck, that is — and even managed another cruise along the shoreline before finally returning to the Coral Discoverer.

We were back in time for afternoon tea … to tide us over between lunch and dinner. And then we had the afternoon to relax until it was time for the photo-recap of the expedition. The photos Sara used for the slideshow were all taken by members of the expedition team … a good overview of our 10-day experience. We will be sent a link to download the photos and add them to our own collections.

The photo-recap led to the Captain’s Farewell Cocktail Party on the open deck aft of the Bridge Lounge. Then downstairs to partake of one last dinner on the ship.

Tomorrow we disembark Coral Discoverer.

(With limited zoom reach for bird photos, I mostly took videos during today’s outing. The files are too big to upload here. If interested, here are some links you can use to watch the videos online … (1) from the Xplorer: https://eenusa.smugmug.com/Oceania/AUS23-24/KIM…; (2) from the zodiac: https://eenusa.smugmug.com/Oceania/AUS23-24/KIM…)Read more