Saturday 19th July, Bye, Beautiful Broome

After a long and comfortable night’s sleep, we had some breakfast at our hotel before checking out and then walking to the meeting point for the start of the Kimberley cruise adventure which was at a nearby hotel about a 20 minute walk from our accommodation. We decided that we could walk the distance with our suitcases and back-packs as it wasn’t too hot. We arrived at 10am and checked in with Coral Expeditions, leaving our luggage. This was done fairly efficiently. Coral Expeditions had a comfort lounge room available at the hotel for us to make use of until our meeting time of 3.30pm.  Free tea, coffee, sparking water etc. was provided and you could make use of the bar if you wished to. We had a bit of a break here, enjoying the beautiful views over Roebuck Bay before deciding to walk to the main part of town. Being Saturday, the Courthouse Markets were on so of course we had to call in there before we made our way to town. We enjoyed wandering around the very busy town and window shopping in the many, various pearl shops. One of these shops had a very interesting free museum about the history of the pearling industry in Broome and I spent time in there enjoying the information as much as the air-conditioning. After lunch we strolled back to the hotel, caught up with some other guests who were going on the cruise with us and relaxed for an hour. It was soon time to meet with the staff from the cruise ship. After a few formalities were completed, we were taken by bus down to the port area of Broome. We boarded the ship and were then directed to the Bridge Deck lounge. Here we had an introduction to the ship and crew, along with a muster drill. (life-jackets) Wayne, our expedition leader gave us a brief run-down on tomorrows activities, By the time we went to our cabins, our luggage was waiting in the room for us. We had just enough time to unpack a few things and then it was time for dinner. We lost an hour and a half on the ship today as the time on the ship are based on Darwin time. We shared a table for dinner with two other lovely couples and enjoyed an excellent 3-course meal with great conversation.