Today was the beginning of our cruise, and we were off to a
flying start – the taxi picked us up at 6am as we needed to be at the ship by
6.30. Well, we booked the taxi for 6am but he was early and it was a short
ride, so we were there by 6.02. And he seemed very keen, driving us around the
immigration building and depositing us right by the gang plank. Then he had to
take us back so we could go through the building properly and have our
passports checked etc. I have no idea why we had such an early start but we
were underway by 8am.
It's a fairly small ship, holding about 120 passengers at most and a few less than that right now. We have a fairly basic room with a decent window but no balcony and I’d describe it as smart but spartan. If you’re interested (or if you’re not), cruise ships are generally constructed with each cabin assembled as a metal box with plumbing and wiring then slotted into place. One of the benefits of this is that you can hang magnetic hooks from the walls. There is just one restaurant (on the same level as us) and one lounge (two decks up) where all of the talks occur. A quirk of this company is that there are no room keys so rooms are left unlocked. This seems fairly safe on such a small ship.
Darwin was not particularly interesting as we departed and
since then we have been sailing across a perfectly calm sea between the Cobourg
Peninsula and the Tiwi Islands and so into the Arafura Sea. The day has been
taken up with briefings about the ship, snorkelling procedures, coming
activities and Indonesia. Luckily these have been interspersed with good meals
we have chatted with various people as you’re always sharing a table. It’s
mostly Australians with a smattering of Europeans and Americans and many of
them have been on Coral Expeditions cruises before.
It looks like the after-dinner entertainment will usually be
a documentary, which we have skipped tonight.
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