Our last full day

A leisurely program was planned for our last full day at sea, the highlight being what was expected to be the best among all the places we had visited. This is the Lacapede Islands, famous for its proliferation of wildlife, Not only was Elspeth able to attend her morning gym class but could follow it up shortly after with a relaxation class. She even managed to squeeze in a swim before lunch.
Both of us attended a nature talk entitled Migration which dealt not only with the well-known species of birds and whales but covered a lot of other ground as well (pun intended).
We were scheduled to head off at 2pm for a 1.5 hour tour covering two of the four Lacapede islands. Unfortunately Brian was feeling slightly off and chose not to risk doing this tour. Most disappointing and frustrating as he recovered very quickly and probably would have been fine. Elspeth did the tour and thoroughly enjoyed it. As expected she saw huge numbers of turtles, though they were difficult to photograph as they would stick their heads above the water for just a few moments. This is the top place in the world for boobies and they were there in vast numbers, along with a myriad of other birds including many squawking pelicans. To add to the excitement a stingray floated under Elspeth's zodiac.
There was a bit of tension as a 3.5m crocodile swam rather too closely alongside the zodiac. Earlier they had spotted a smaller croc sunning itself on the beach.
Elspeth’s group returned just in time to attend our final daily briefing where we were somewhat put out to learn that we will have to have our luggage packed and outside our rooms by 6am the next morning.
This last night was also the night of the captain’s Gala Dinner where again we were asked to dress in more formal attire. As before, it was mainly the women who complied, with many of the men still looking very casual. It was, nevertheless, quite a grand affair beginning with champagne all round. Then, in a highly choreographed but entertaining manner almost the entire crew of the ship were presented to us. Chefs, waiters, stewards, engineers, naturalists and so on came running in their respective groups on to the deck and were greeted with enthusiastic cheers and applause by the assembled passengers. It appears that the former are almost equal in number to the latter. There is no doubt that the service they provided over the entire voyage was impressive.
Then followed the dinner itself, something like eight courses. The main course was duck and certainly none of the four of us at our table were able to finish their food. For Brian not to finish a duck dish is totally unprecedented, but coming after the previous nine days of over-indulgence it was just too much. The food certainly was spectacularly good. A great finale to a wonderful trip.En savoir plus