Cruise Part III - Propellers, Perils and Pearls

One of the talks we attended was the Captain's  virtual tour of the ship.  Now each cruise ship is essentially a floating city, or a good-sized town in our case, with 1258 passengers and 580 crew.
She is 719 feet long, 105.8 feet in width, 131 feet in height, has 10 decks and draws about 25 feet of water as she sails. There are 5 diesel engines; two that turn its two propeller shafts

and three for the positioning thrusters that allow maneuvering side to side in port.

However, the Captain cannot get maximum efficiency from the rudders as it would cause way too many gin and tonics to be “lost at sea”.

The ship has a bulbous protrusion at the bow, which helps break up the bow wave.  This reduces the drag on the ship and allows her to sail through the water with less power.

She also has (most importantly for those of us that suffer from sea sickness) stabilizers that reduce the roll action of the ship.  These have articulating fins like ailerons on airplanes that deploy based on a gyroscope that senses the roll and corrects for it.

The Captain must remember to pull in the stabilizers before he parallel parks. Apparently, it has happened that other Captains have forgotten – an expensive "Oops".

An on board water evaporation system converts saltwater to fresh, as well as a reverse osmosis water purification system to supplement if the evaporation system cannot keep up with the water demand. An advanced microbiological system takes all the wastewater into a bioreactor and all those microbes (the good bugs) turn the wastewater into potable water. However, that water is not reused on board (you could hear a sigh of relief in the audience when the Captain said that!)

There are 2 doctors and 3 nurses on board ­­- probably a good thing given the average age of the passengers on board!

After three days at sea, we were most definitely ready to get off the ship at our next port of call, Darwin.  While there are wonderful lectures to attend and activities to undertake, one does get a wee bit "house bound" when aboard ship for three days!

Darwinians like to say that they are the most remote city in Australia.  People from Perth understandably like to argue that point given their westerly position, but a quick google check says that Perth is 3,718 kilometres from Canberra (the Capital of Australia), whereas it is 4,053 kilometres from Darwin to Canberra.  OK, Darwin wins.  In fact, it is faster and cheaper for Darwinians to fly to Asia than it is to fly to Sydney or Canberra!

It is also a lot warmer in Darwin than other parts of Australia.  The area is now in “the buildup” to the wet season.  The temperatures get into the 30-39C (or 90s Fahrenheit) range, with very high humidity (80-90%), so the temperature feels much higher.  When you step out from your air-conditioned room (23C or 74F), it feels a bit like when you open the oven and the heat hits you in a wave. However, we are NOT complaining (particularly given the cool spell in Alberta), just passing on our observations!

OK, on with the story!  Our Darwin excursion is to the jumping crocodiles on the Adelaide River. How about starting with one of Sonya’s close-up shots?

Yes, Sonya was close, but she did use her telephoto lens, and was behind a protective rail on the boat.

Crocodiles in the form we know today have been on earth for about 80 million years, and their ancestors came from the dinosaurs of about 230 million years ago.  

Recall from our East Kimberley blog that only 1% of all eggs make it to adulthood.  They take 12 years to reach maturity.  Females will reach a maximum length of about 3.5 metres (11 feet) and a maximum weight of 100 kilograms (220 lbs).  Males continue to grow until they die.  The longest croc pulled out of the Adelaide River was 7 metres (29 feet).   The ones we saw were considerably smaller but still very intimidating!  

Crocs have quite good eyesight, hearing and a keen sense of smell.  The scales on their body, particularly those around their head, are sensors that can detect the smallest of vibrations in and on the water up to 2 kilometers away. These sensors are like radar, allowing the croc to sense their prey, zone in, and BANG the ambush is over!

Crocs eat mainly fish but will tackle most anything, including the local cattle and  water buffalo.

During the wet Darwin will get more than 2 metres of rain, and the ditches and fields will be flooded for several months. Crocs are quite lazy and territorial, generally staying in the same area. However, the flooding allows the crocs to easily leave the main river following the flood waters over fields and plains.   Consequently, the water buffalo and cattle that like to be near water, make a tasty meal for the crocs!

OK, back to the jumping crocs.

These boats take curious gawking tourists (that would be us) on board so that we can get shots like this one.  The amount of food that the crocs receive on these sorties is roughly equivalent to the amount of energy they expend getting the snack that they snap up, so they are not in any way dependent on the tours to survive. 

We leave this subject with a short video of a croc jumping to get its snack! (Click video to watch.)

While we were on the river, we were introduced to kites.  No, not the toy, the bird; raptor to be specific.  (Diane, you can skip this section given your aversion to these fine feathered friends!)

The croc tour people also provide a wee snack for the kites as we make our way back to the docks. Here is a video of them in action.  These agile birds catch the meat tidbit in their talons in midflight.  Unlike other birds of prey, they actually transfer their catch from their talons to their beak while in flight and literally eat on the run, (or flight in this case).   I have slowed down the section of the video where the kite catches the snack (at about the 5 second mark). Hopefully you can see it.

As with the crocs, the amount of food provided to the birds amount to a small appetizer in advance of their own hunt for a main meal.

These birds love to eat small rodents and such. So, when there are brush fires, these birds watch the fringe areas of the fire to catch the animals that are attempting to escape.  In fact, they are so smart, they can pick up a twig or bark that is on fire and drop it in another area in front of the fire to cause the rodents in that area to flee – more lunch!  

Upon completion of our tour, we arrived at the dock only to find out that we could not re-board our ship because one of the windowpanes delaminated from the second pane and posed a threat to passengers, as it was directly above the gangway!

As it was going to be awhile, one of the tour guides suggested that we go for a beer, so we joined him.

Now looking at this picture, you can tell that this fella has a few tales to tell.   These stories, however, are beyond the scope of this blog!  Needless to say, he was a colorful character who had been a resident of the state for a period of time and was well known by the locals at the Humpty Doo Hotel and Pub!

Once everyone was back on board, the crew undertook to secure the windowpane in question prior to departing Darwin. The Captain is hoping to get a replacement in Perth…but who stocks cruise ship windows…likely not your average auto glass shop.

After a gorgeous sunset …

We departed for Komodo Island in Indonesia. 

While this cruise is a circumnavigation of Australia, we are making a short detour to see the world renowned Komodo Dragon on Komodo Island; next stop Indonesia! Lucky for us, the ship took care of clearing all the passengers for arrival to Indonesia.  (OK, another country checked on the visit list!)

Komodo dragons belong to the lizard species of animals. Those who have been to Mexico, may be familiar with Iguanas.  These are also lizards, but from a different species and much smaller.   The Komodo Dragon is the king of the lizards.  They are protected in the Komodo National Park, and Komodo Island forms part of the park.  Because they are a protected species, the tour had a park ranger, a guide and a third person acting as rear-guard.  The Ranger and the rear-guard carry protection, and they choose their protection of choice here:

Hakim was our ranger and you can see the protective weapon that he is wielding.

One wonders how much protection these tools provide given that dragons grow up to 8.5 feet (2.6 metres) in length and weigh upwards of 200 lbs (85 kilos).  The largest verified specimen grew to 10.3 feet (3.13 metres) and weighed 366 lbs (166 kg)!  They mature around the age of 9-10 years, and live up to 30 years, provided they are not eaten by their own kind.  Yes, they cannibalize their own, much like crocs.  Dragons can also run up to 12 mph (20 km/h) in short bursts, so vigilance is required.

Here then is one of these critters we came upon.

Sonya thought that you may want to get a look at its cute face (which only a mother could love):

Dragons can eat up to 70% of their weight in a single meal.  As you can imagine then, this Timor Deer

stays quite vigilant while grazing.  Yes, dragons can and do take these guys down and eat them.  Local delicacies are deer, feral pigs, and water buffalo. Because they eat the entire animal, including bones, digestion takes some time, so they can survive on as little as one large meal per month. 

In the afternoon, we jumped on a zodiac to the Pink Beach for yet another reef snorkel. Some of the locals were there as well.

This little darling was jumping in and out of the waves.  Clearly born to swim!

Sonya’s underwater camera skills were getting better, as you can see from this angelfish.

However, given that her mask is not vision corrected, she still gets the occasional miss-shot.

I am not sure if she thought this was a fish going by or what, but this time she got my fins instead of hers!

Pink Beach is in a nicely protected cove ideally suited to snorkeling, even for novices.You get a sense of it here, with the boat in the background.

Some of the local young lads were out pedaling their wares to tourists.

I wonder how many North American parents would allow their kids out on the open sea to sell their carvings and sculptures.

With everyone aboard by 3:45, we were off to our next destination.  Enjoy the view from our room as we set sail!

Back to Broome

Having spent four days in Broome prior to our tour of the Kimberley, arriving here almost felt like coming home!

The red earth and accompanying bull dust felt very familiar.

Having previously undertaken many of the onshore activities, we opted for the Willie Creek Pearl Farm tour – wrong move!

Most of the pearls are farmed about 10 miles offshore, on literally miles of lines from which the oyster enclosures are suspended.

Lest you think that we had to ride out in a boat that far offshore, these lines are in a tidal estuary adjacent to the company’s on shore pearl operations. The enclosures are dropped down at least two metres below the surface - an oyster condominium, if you will.

I use that word in jest, but it is quite descriptive, as these miles of lines are home to more than 20,000 mature oysters.  It takes about two years for an oyster to grow to the size where it can be seeded with a small bead called a nucleus – actually a tiny piece of seashell from the Mississippi Mussel. The nucleus is inserted into the oyster and the oyster secretes a substance to coat the nucleus, which in about two years, becomes a pearl.

During the two-year process, the oysters are cared for and inspected on a regular basis.  As you can see here,

the oysters attract a great deal of foreign material like seaweed and algae that must be cleaned off on a regular basis (or the oyster won't open, feed, or produce that all important pearl). They have teams of oyster cleaners who scrub 3,000 oysters by hand every day. Now that is a lot of scrubbing as every oyster is cleaned every 4 weeks. Just to be sure they still have a pearl in every oyster they also periodically x-ray each one. Since, oysters can also fall prey to several parasites and diseases that will destroy the precious pearl, they are also  regularly brought up to be inspected and treated if needed. Oyster tender loving care...and now you know why real pearls are so darn expensive!

At harvest time (about two years later), the oyster is opened using a rubber wedge.

It is through this small opening that the pearl technician must make a small incision inside the oyster, remove the pearl and insert another nucleus for the development of a new pearl through the next two-years. 

This oyster,

had reached the end of its pearl producing life cycle, so it was split apart for inspection and extraction of that precious pearl.

Now, one of the perils of visiting a pearl farm is that they have quite an inventory of pearls for sale.  While we were in the showroom, Sonya was eyeing this necklace.

As her birthday was imminent – guess what?  As the store attendants were all busy with other customers, the owner came over to us and suggested that Sonya make him an offer.  Her Dutch heritage and work instincts kicked in and she was back in negotiating mode.  Well after completion of the transaction, the owner came away feeling somewhat run roughshod.  It was then that I told him Sonya’s last name and what she did for a living.  Sonya came away with the best deal of the day!
Happy Birthday my dear!

Back on the bull dust road at sunset!

That’s it for now.  See you in the next installment!

SnP