Around The World Without Flying: The Magical Kimberley Coast Part 5 - Beautiful waterways, and an extraordinary bear

When we got up bright and early the next morning so that we could leave at sunrise and make the best use of the massive tidal changes over the day (about 12 metres difference between high tide and low tide), we found we had been joined during the night by the other two ships in the fleet. Both of these were quite a bit smaller than our ship. It was good to see signs of other people after all that time.

We went exploring more of the coastline and sailed around some uninhabited islands in the Xplorer, again seeing mangroves and a few sea birds. We learned about the use of a huge, very steep rocky island that was used by a local Aboriginal tribe to initiate their young men, who were left on the island to fend for themselves for a while to prove themselves.

This island had a cave near its base, and we were told the most memorable, moving story about a discovery made there. Some the crew had walked into the back of the cave at low tide and found a very battered, broken teddy bear lying there. They assumed it had been lost overboard from a passing ship and had eventually been pushed into the cave by the strong currents. They decided to bring it back to the ship, where at the time an Australian army surgeon was having a cruise for much-needed R and R. Her spirit was somewhat battered and bruised too - by all she had seen in the past months. Somehow she found the materials she needed to ‘operate’ on the bear and the result for the bear, and for her, was astonishing. Both were fully restored! That bear is now on display on the ship, and is dubbed ‘Kim Bear Lee’.

Interestingly, when I went back on the ship in 2015, no-one on the crew that time knew the story behind the bear, so I was delighted to be able to pass it on.

That afternoon we went out again to see an incredible coral reef ‘rise’ out of the sea. I will tell you about that in my next post.