Cygnet Bay …

Yeah, I missed you too. We went away for a few days.

William Dampier and the crew of the Cygnet were the first Englishmen ashore in Australia in 1688. The ship was beached for urgently needed repairs. They spent two months in Cygnet Bay near the tip of what became Dampier Peninsula and enjoyed good relations with the local people.

On his return to England Dampier wrote a very successful account of his travels which earnt him the opportunity to visit Oz as leader of a scientific expedition in 1699. This time as master of the Roebuck, which unfortunately was falling apart underneath him. The expedition spent three months charting 1400 km of coast from Shark Bay to Broome before heading home with meticulous notes and important biological specimens.

The Roebuck sank at Ascension Island on the way back to England but the crew, the notes and the specimens escaped intact. Dampier is described by the National Museum of Australia website as “explorer, naturalist, author, hydrographer and pirate.” He was the first to circumnavigate the globe three times.

In 1960 a pearl farm was established at Cygnet Bay by Lyndon Brown a second generation pearler and the first non-Japanese to penetrate the well guarded mystery of culturing pearls using the Pinctada maxima, an oyster famous for its huge size and the lustre of its shell and its pearls. Visitors can tour the farm, visit the shop, stay in diverse types of accommodation, swim in the pool, eat at the restaurant and go bird watching if that takes their fancy. It is a place of great beauty.

Just up the road is the aboriginal settlement of Ardyaloon. You need a permit to visit but this is no big deal, they are available for purchase at the Gallery on the way into town. It entitles you to visit the hatchery, very interesting, and the beaches. It, too, is a place of great beauty.

On our last night at Cygnet Bay I ventured down to the beach to take in the Milky Way before the waning crescent moon had a chance to climb above the horizon. The lights of Ardyaloon were visible in the distance. Click on any of the pictures for a better look – especially this one!

A romantic footnote … some years ago I took Gayle to the Willie Creek Pearl Farm on her birthday and bought her a cold drink and an ice-cream.