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Tomorrow it’s on the bird PER-BME to board a 12-pax/5-crew 67ft catamaran for a two-week voyage along the Kimberley coast to Wyndham, where we disembark for a land transfer to Kununurra to fly KNX-xBME-PER.
Here’s the itinerary:
The voyage is timed to coincide with the end of the wet season and with that the opportunity to see the many waterfalls flowing. For that, there is generally a fairly narrow window with the Kimberley voyaging season opening in mid to late March after the wet and cyclone season is normally finished (errr… the weather forecast indicates that I may be speaking too soon on that
), to May by which time the dry season has set in and waterfalls are much diminished.
We are on the second voyage of the season for this vessel; the first was Wyndham-Broome 28 March-10 April. We were scheduled to overnight in Broome on Saturday and depart Sunday afternoon, but on Tuesday the operators contacted all pax to see how they were placed to leave Saturday afternoon. Fortunately, all were available, so we’ll be straight off the bird and onto the boat for an extra night and get clear of open water off Dampier Peninsula.
Going on a small vessel gives enormous flexibility to get well up rivers to reach less-accessible sites and do such things as directly nosing under waterfalls, while few pax means much more flexibility for sightseeing activities, without the impost on time of shuffling larger numbers of people about. Importantly, both aspects allow much more scope for more immersive activities such as fishing, mud-crabbing and oyster-gathering that are impractical for larger-complement vessels.
I did something similar back in 2012 (Awesome Kimberley coast cruise) and PJM and I did a Coral Expeditions voyage (120 pax vessel) Darwin-Broome, including extending offshore to Ashmore Reef and Rowley Shoals, during the dry season in 2023 (A Kimberley coast and offshore reefs kaleidoscope).
This trip will allow PJM to see the wet season contrast, as well as take in the small-boat experience. As a kid, her family had a launch that they used for summer holidays at their Rottnest Island mooring, so it should bring back good memories.
In my view, the Kimberley coast needs to be travelled in both seasons to really appreciate it and doing it in different size vessels makes the total life-experience greater than the sum of the two parts.
Here’s the itinerary:
The voyage is timed to coincide with the end of the wet season and with that the opportunity to see the many waterfalls flowing. For that, there is generally a fairly narrow window with the Kimberley voyaging season opening in mid to late March after the wet and cyclone season is normally finished (errr… the weather forecast indicates that I may be speaking too soon on that
), to May by which time the dry season has set in and waterfalls are much diminished.We are on the second voyage of the season for this vessel; the first was Wyndham-Broome 28 March-10 April. We were scheduled to overnight in Broome on Saturday and depart Sunday afternoon, but on Tuesday the operators contacted all pax to see how they were placed to leave Saturday afternoon. Fortunately, all were available, so we’ll be straight off the bird and onto the boat for an extra night and get clear of open water off Dampier Peninsula.
Going on a small vessel gives enormous flexibility to get well up rivers to reach less-accessible sites and do such things as directly nosing under waterfalls, while few pax means much more flexibility for sightseeing activities, without the impost on time of shuffling larger numbers of people about. Importantly, both aspects allow much more scope for more immersive activities such as fishing, mud-crabbing and oyster-gathering that are impractical for larger-complement vessels.
I did something similar back in 2012 (Awesome Kimberley coast cruise) and PJM and I did a Coral Expeditions voyage (120 pax vessel) Darwin-Broome, including extending offshore to Ashmore Reef and Rowley Shoals, during the dry season in 2023 (A Kimberley coast and offshore reefs kaleidoscope).
This trip will allow PJM to see the wet season contrast, as well as take in the small-boat experience. As a kid, her family had a launch that they used for summer holidays at their Rottnest Island mooring, so it should bring back good memories.
In my view, the Kimberley coast needs to be travelled in both seasons to really appreciate it and doing it in different size vessels makes the total life-experience greater than the sum of the two parts.
