Walking Elbark deck by deck: master cabin, lounge and sky deck

I'm Jewel, and I guide guests and survey boats for the Komodo Explorer booking team. I haven't slept aboard Elbark yet, so treat this as a walk on paper, from the top deck down.

I've worked from three sources. One is the boat's own description. The others are the two deck-plan drawings and the photographs we hold. "Listed" means the boat says so. "A photograph shows" means I can see it in a picture. Anything else I mark as unknown, and after my first trip I'll rewrite this note from what I find on board.

First, the listed numbers. Elbark is 37 m long and 6.8 m wide, and her Mitsubishi engine pushes her along at 7 to 10 knots. She carries 9 thousand litres of fresh water and 5.5 thousand litres of fuel, and the hero photograph shows her two masts. She sails from Labuan Bajo and stays inside Komodo National Park.

Misool is the master cabin and, at 34 sqm, the biggest room on the boat. Misool has a bathtub, a work desk and a private balcony with a sofa and a jacuzzi. In the photographs I can see a bed with an ochre throw under a carved wall panel. There's a teak desk with a swing-arm lamp below the air conditioner, and corner windows full of sun and sea.

Out on the balcony, one photograph shows a round wooden jacuzzi tub next to sliding glass doors; another shows a round rattan daybed piled with white cushions. The bathroom shot has a freestanding white bath beside a black stone basin, with a window onto the sea.

Weh and Mentawai are 13.6 sqm each, with big windows and a bathtub. I only have pictures of Weh, and Mentawai is the same type. They show a wide bed with a mauve runner and towels folded into swans, white robes on hooks, and a freestanding tub under a window that frames the sea and a green shore.

The sky deck and the sunbathing areas are on the main and upper decks. One photograph shows loungers with teal cushions by the wheelhouse, next to a ladder.

This is the deck where the party lives. The boat has an indoor dining room and lounge, outdoor dining under a canopy, a relax area at the bow and a lounge on the after deck, and I have a photograph of each.

Inside, the lounge has a cream sofa with blue diamond-pattern cushions, a live-edge teak coffee table and windows all along one wall. The dining room is laid in red and white, with wooden chairs and a cushioned sofa under the windows. Outside, a table set with teal plates and red napkins stands beside a cushioned banquette, with hills across the water. Up at the bow there's a daybed with blue-grey cushions beside a rigging rope.

Selayar and Rote are 9.24 sqm, with windows, a work desk and a rainfall shower. My Selayar pictures show a grey throw, a carved panel above the bed and white bathrobes on hooks. The bathroom has a black rain shower and a black stone basin with a curved brass tap. Rote is the same type.

Down here are the four smallest cabins, Toraja, Alor, Banda Neira and Savu, 8.75 sqm each with a double bed, an ensuite bathroom and a small round marine window. Toraja and Alor have a work desk. For Banda Neira and Savu none is listed.

In the Toraja photographs the cabin is narrow, with a rust-brown throw, a long timber bench against the hull, a carved, perforated panel behind the bed and a round porthole. Savu has a sage throw, carved wooden shelves and a curved timber hull wall sweeping over the bed. Alor and Banda Neira match those two types.

Headroom is the figure I can't give you. That hull wall curves right over the bed, and the cabin details give floor area but no ceiling height. I'd want to stand in one myself before telling a tall guest it fits.

A walk on paper leaves gaps. These are the ones I'd close first, in this order.

• How the three decks are linked, and the height of each step.
• Which cabins sit next to each other, for families who need two doors close together.
• The crew count and roles. No figure for them has reached us.
• What medical kit is aboard. So far the safety list stops at a raft for 25, life buoys, a flare gun and a fire extinguisher.
• How guests step into the aluminium tender, and which stops use it.
• Ceiling height in the lower cabins.

For the record, the navigation list reads compass, GPS, map and AIS, with SSB, VHF and handheld radios, and the Wi-Fi is local. Every answer the boat sends back reaches you in writing before you pay.