Breakfast on the beach where we had camped overnight. This bay is the next bay around from Cygnet Bay, between the Pearl farm and One Arme Point and the land belongs to Bruce Wiggan.

Bruce Wiggan is a Bardi man born at the mission on Iwany (Sunday Island), off the coast of the Dampier Peninsula, 200km north of Broome, Western Australia. As a senior man of the Bardi tribe that come from the tip of the Dampier Peninsula, Bruce shares custodianship of many of the sacred and ceremonial stories associated with the Bardi people and their ocean culture. Bruce is also an artist and pearl shell carver.

Highly prized as ornaments and ceremonial objects, goowarn (pearl shells) were exchanged along a vast system of inland trade routes that stretched from the Kimberley region in north Western Australia to central and southern Australia. Only Aboriginal men from the Kimberley region who were initiated to the highest degree wore decorated pearl shell, or Riji, during ceremonies. These shell were incised with sacred patterns which could be tribal insignia or have other meanings or stories to tell or pass on. Riji were associated with water, spiritual powers and healing due to the luminous shimmering quality of their surfaces.

Contemporary Aboriginal artists such as Bruce Wiggan continue to maintain cultural customs by engraving geometric or figurative designs on prepared goowarn, followed by a mixture of ochre or charcoal and resin or fat, which is rubbed into the grooves. Bruce feels that is is his role to continue and pass down the art of traditional pearl shell carving and the knowledge of ceremonial culture and traditions that goes with this. Through his art he also feels that he is able to pass on his own family stories in a contemporary style.

Bruce now lives in the One Arm Point Community on the Dampier Peninsula and continues to develop his skills as an artist and to pass on his cultural knowledge to younger members of the community. Bruce also works as a cultural guide for tourists travelling to the Dampier Peninsula, and spends as much time as possible along the coast and among the islands of the Buccaneer Archipelago – the sea country of the Bardi Jawi people.

After breakfast, the boat arrived to collect us. As it approached the shore, they cut the motor, started the second motor and the wheels descended to drive up on the sand for us to board. Then drove back into the water, raised the wheels, lowered the outboard and we were back to the Cygnet Bay Pearl Farm where Ches bought a Pearl for her charm bracelet.

Drove over to Cape Leveque (Kooljaman) for a swim and lunch. Amazing azure sea, white sand and red cliffs and rocks.

Drove home finishing with the 90km of red dirt road to wake you up.