Tuesday 13 August 2024 – Today was to be the first expedition from the ship, to cruise on Zodiacs around the Lacépède Islands. There were three activities in preparation for this, one of which was mandatory, and so all the passengers had to sign in to make sure that everyone had attended. The expedition leader, Dain, first introduced the rest of the expedition team, a very diverse set of people and relevant skills, but all with clear enthusiasm for the job of making sure we punters got the best out of the time spent off the boat.

The next bit was the mandatory bit, which was a lesson on how to get on and off the Zodiacs safely. This was familiar territory for us, since the procedures were pretty much exactly what we’d learned and observed when we were in Antarctica. That had been a well-organised setup and it was reassuring to note that APT, who were running this cruise, took it every bit as seriously.

The final part was information about the destination for today’s expedition – the Lacépède Islands. The name was conferred in 1801 by the French explorer Nicolas Baudin during his expedition around Australia, in honour of French naturalist Bernard Germain de Lacépède, who described several Australian fish species. He dubbed the three islands Napoleon, Grant and Victoria. Then (we were told) the Brits came along, and renamed them West, Middle and East. Whatever, the islands have been identified by Birdlife International as an Important Bird Area, and are now an A-class reserve managed by Western Australia’s Department of Environment and Conservation. Rats (introduced accidentally during the guano mining carried out on the Lacépèdes as well as numerous other islands off the western Australian coast during the 19th century) were eradicated in 1986, allowing the recolonisation of the islands by nesting seabirds, prime among which are Brown Boobies; the islands are home to 18,000 nesting pairs. They are also Western Australia’s most important breeding habitat for green sea turtles.

No confusion about what wildlife we might expect to see, then.

It wasn’t a long journey to get there, so the skipper took it nice and gently, even temporarily altering course in order to get a slightly closer look at some humpback whales which were cavorting not too far away.

We could even see the occasional breaching by humpbacks in the distance, and some tail-slapping, too. One of the naturalists also spotted a sea snake swimming by.

The Lacépède Islands are noted for the variety of bird life there, and so we had a lecture from one of the guides to help us identify the birds that we might be able to catch sight of on our Zodiac cruise. Then, after a swift bite of lunch, it was time to man the Zodiacs. Since there weren’t enough to accommodate all the punters at once, we had been split into four groups, denoted by different colours, in order to get everyone out on the water in an orderly fashion.

Jane and I are in yellow group, who went first; and Jane and I happened to be in the first Zodiac out.

It was not difficult to see the Brown Boobies. They are curious birds, and it wasn’t long before they spotted us and a delegation came out to welcome us and check us out.

They are adept fliers (their name comes from the Spanish “bobo”, meaning a clown or a clumsy person, because they’re not elegant at all on land) and so presented a few challenges to capture photos of them as they whizzed around us.  But the trusty Nikon was up to the job, I’m glad to say, despite the difficulties I faced of accurately aiming a heavy lens at a distant moving object whilst seated on a boat which is rocking unpredictably.

They are slightly odd-looking birds at the best of times; then they stare at you directly, at which point

you see their very scary dementor faces.

There were quite a few crowded colonies of the birds visible as we cruised past, but they tended to be on rocks, which meant it was difficult to pick them out against the background,

but occasionally we could get a decent angle to show them as they rested and nested.

We even caught sight of a couple of chicks.

No problem to see Brown Boobies, then.  It was also quite easy to spot this salt-water crocodile,

which was something in the order of three metres long. Xander, our guide and Zodiac driver, was assiduous in making sure we were seated as we passed by; crocodiles can move very quickly indeed, and this one might have made for the Zodiac with the intention of causing trouble.  If Xander had then suddenly and swiftly accelerated swiftly away in response, anyone standing might have then fallen overboard, which would likely cause a lot of paperwork. So we remained seated until we were sure it was just chilling [thermo-regulating, actually – Ed].

The other key wildlife member was much more challenging even to see clearly, far less to photograph. There were many green sea turtles around, but they were not at all obliging when it came to be ready for their close-up.  The best one could expect was, if lucky, to catch a shot of a head popping out of the water as a turtle took a breath, but one had to be very lucky to catch it.

I was not one of the lucky ones.

The best I could do was to get an image of something vaguely turtle shaped under the surface.  I hope this video gives some idea of how a typical encounter with a turtle ran.

Our time was up and so we headed back to the ship so that someone else could have a go on our Zodiac and, via some nice chocolate accompaniment to afternoon tea, had a bit of a rest before the evening briefing.  Similar, again, to our Antarctic experience, Dain, the expedition leader, ran a session which added a bit of background to today’s expedition (Xander telling us more about the life cycle of the green sea turtle), followed by a briefing of what was due for the morrow. Various options were on offer, some involving scrambling over rocks and some not. We opted for the scrambling over rocks version, which I hope was not an error of judgement on our part.

After the briefing came the a drinks reception, at which the captain introduced the senior crew members,

followed by a Gala Dinner, which was probably, judging from the quality of the meals we’ve had so far on the cruise, a sumptuous feast.  However, neither Jane nor I had the stomach for stuffing ourselves, and so we opted to stay downstairs and have a light buffet supper. Our original plan, which was just to eat à deux, unravelled when sociability and good manners led us to invite another couple, who had also decided against the more formal option, to join us.  So Jane had an enjoyable conversation with the engaging husband, which I would have been delighted to be a part of were it not for his wife’s annoying inability to refrain from injecting her own distracting, and not very interesting, converse in my direction. Unfortunately, it wasn’t possible to engineer a decently swift escape without being ruder than even I might consider acceptable.

One of the guides hosted a star-gazing session on the roof of the boat, which sounded interesting, so we went along. Unfortunately, the moon, although only half full, was bright and clear, which buggers up the chance of seeing all the lovely stars, and so I lost interest quite swiftly. I did, however, learn that the Perseids, through which the Earth is currently ploughing, should give rise to shooting stars here in the southern hemisphere, so I might try my luck later on in the cruise to watch out for them on another evening.

Tomorrow is set to offer two excursions, one on Zodiacs to view a particular phenomenon at Montgomery Reef, and the other one on land, to stumble along the rocky path we have signed up for and see what may be seen.  Keep your eye on these pages to see exactly what is was that we ended up seeing.