Welcome Coral Geographer!

With the footy season over, the cruise ship season is about to begin!

The beautiful Coral Geographer small cruise ship arrived in Freo this morning from Broome en route to Adelaide.

She is operated by Coral Expeditions and a sister ship to the Coral Adventurer. She was built in 2021 at a cost of Euro €67 Million – that’s about AUD $104 million.

You may remember that this time last year the Coral Adventurer was in port from Broome and en route to Adelaide as well.

Coral Geographer is a purpose built exploration boat offering expedition cruises around the remote islands of the Indian Ocean. She carries a maximum of 120 lucky passengers who have four different en-suite cabin types to choose from. Most of the 60 cabins have a balcony.

There are seven decks with multiple bars and a gym. A crew of 48 looks after the passengers – the ‘guests’ – with promises of world-class expedition experiences.

So if you want to explore the remote and undiscovered islands of the Indian Ocean, there are several itineraries for trips around Australia, New Zealand, Sulawesi and Borneo and all the way to Mauritius and Zanzibar in Africa. Prices start at $592 per day.

This ship is 94m long and was purpose-designed to access remote wilderness shores that are often inaccessible to large cruise vessels. The ship’s lightweight tenders, or ‘safari jeeps’ of the sea, are perfect for exploring shallow bays, remote islands and small villages.

If you go to Victoria Quay, you’ll find her at D Berth.

The Coral Geographer is next heading across the Great Australian Bight to Adelaide. She’ll be at sea for 13 nights. Keep an eye out for her – she will be back again!

And also keep a look out for the bigger cruise ships that will arrive in Freo before long.

* STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHS by Jean Hudson @jeansodyssey, our Shipping Correspondent. Jean is a regular feature writer and photographer here on the Shipping News. You may also like to follow up her informative Places I Love stories, as well as other feature stories and Freo Today photographs, right here.

WHILE YOU’RE HERE –