The green tendrils of envy

Position 0630 18th 4720 06301 trip 136, DMG 105. For the next report I will use as the DMG waypoint a lump of rock named Ilot de la Reunion by Kerguelen (Rendezvous Islet, where he arranged to meet Rosnevet in L'Oiseau after they had landed) and which Cook named Bligh's Cap without knowing of the original name. It's about 20 miles north of Baie de L'Oiseau.
Quick as a flash from Steve Jackson:
SEND + MORE = MONEY
9567 + 1085 = 10652
no computer needed!
I'm envious - wish I could do those things and I bet it only took him a few minutes. Pooo! So a bottle of Pete's home brew if the kids haven't found it all or whatever works shall be despatched in due course. Onya Steve! Steve has an advantage in the timing as he can email us direct so if there's a correct answer in the next Berrimilla2 download from the other Steve, there will be a second despatch. Pete is checking his workings! I wonder what Father McCormack would be thinking if he knew that more than half a century after he chalked it on the board at least one of his pupils actually remembered and inveigled a solution. Cunning succeeds in the end!
When I send this, I will also pull in a grib which should give us a feel for how the Examiner will test us. Violent rolling, 20 knots, but not too bad at the mo. Breakfast Consultation appropriately conducted - Liffey Water - and thinking about lunch.

The Examiner lurks

For the first time in ages, we are albatrossless. Lots of petrels and a prion or two and the occasional storm petrel. It's grey, soft overcast, grey green sea with glassy tips to the waves and crystal filigree frills. The wind has been more or less constant N for 24 hours or so and we are making good progress in a rising sea. The rather nasty tight little low is, I think, forming to the north of us though it's possible that it is the little depression the grib shows to our south and it will deepen very fast and roll over us. Anyway, a bit of stink looms and the Examiner will be abroad in the Boonies tomorrow.

It is eerie to be once again so close to Cook and some of his predecessors. We passed Cooks northernmost point, near Point Wainwright north of the Bering Strait in the Chukchi Sea in 2008 and he was down here in 1776. I hope we can actually visit his Christmas Harbour - now properly named Baie de L'Oiseau - on the northern tip of Kerguelen island. The engravings and logs of his stay are very detailed and it should be possible to stand where he stood and where the artist stood - but with Berrimilla in the bay where Resolution and Discovery and later Erebus and Terror once anchored. And there's another shiver for the spine - in 2008 we also passed the last known positions of Erebus and Terror and the final resting places of their crews near King William Island in the North West Passage. It is thought that Francis Crozier, Captain of the Terror, was one of the few straggling survivors that reached Starvation Cove where they died. I have seen his last note, left on King William Island and discovered later by (I think) M'Lintock and now in the museum at Greenwich with some other sad relics. There is so much history, pain, courage and fortitude in such a small scrap of paper and it's a privilege to have been able to follow them all.

Pete thinks he has proved that there is no solution to the SEND MORE MONEY problem. Anyone got a better idea?

We've been talking on the radio to the skipper of MV Kaharoa, laying argos buoys out here for the New Zealand Institute of
Water and Atmos Res. They are going to try making Berrimilla bread - fame at last! They expect to be in Hobart around Feb 7th - if any of y'all are reading this over there under Mt Welly, go along and say G'day.

closing on Kerguelen

That is South Africa in the top left corner, Antarctica is the white bit at the bottom, and Australia just peaking in on the right edge. Kerguelen is dead centre of the bottom map.
Click on the maps to enlarge.

Idle patter from the middle watch

Position 0630 17th 4542 06053, trip 127, DMG 122. A good day! About 350 to Kerguelen. Nasty low forming to the north.

Back on Iridium full time until we get closer to Oz so these will be fewer and more frugal. This one will develop until it's time to send the 0630 report.

I made Berrimilla bread yesterday - bread with attitude. Chop an onion and a big clove of garlic very fine. Mix the dough from a pack of breadmix with warm water and when it is fully mixed, work the onion and garlic through it. Heat some olive oil - really hot but not smoking - make lots of small very thin pancakes out of the dough and fry them for half a minute or so each side till brown and crusty. If you prefer, as I do, cook them a bit less so they are still slightly doughy in the middle. Remove, replace with another, eat the first one - and that's the problem, of course. The whole process takes about half an hour - far less than conventional breadmaking and uses much less metho. The pancakes keep for a couple of days if they don't get eaten first.

10200 miles out, about 3800 to go in cold, unstretchy numbers but most marathon runners will understand the stats, where every mile is longer than the last. I reckon we're at about 6 miles into the Falmouth to Hobart marathon - just settled into a nice rhythm, contemplating with apprehension and the usual touch of dread the next 20 miles and hoping it all holds together.

Norm, looks further than Germany but there ya go! One for you and anyone else who cares to try. When I was about 10, if such a time ever existed, my maths teacher was a learned gent in a cassock who believed in the 'I told you and wrote it on the blackboard so why don't you understand?' teaching method. He tried to introduce me to algebra. If a=3 and b= -3 then a+b=0 - obvious isn't it? Well, not actually, for this kid. I kept asking why. If he'd taught it as if it was a language I might now be better at it. Anyway, I remember his writing a puzzle on the board - he wrote SEND and then wrote MORE under it so that the M was under the S and said 'Assume that each letter has a numerical value and is the same whenever it appears, if you substitute the correct values the answer will be MONEY' and he wrote that under MORE so the Y was under the E which was under the D. Isn't it odd what sticks in the memory? For all I know, there might not be a solution. I've never got beyond first base and Pete is having a go now but isn't much further. Would be relatively easy to write a computer program to solve it today but by elimination with a pencil it's tricky. A small Berrimilla artefact for the first solution that arrives.

Mostly catch ups

Kelp! Big floating patch - impenetrable. About 400 miles out but a sure sign we are getting closer

First recognisable Sooty Albatross - glimpse only - big dark bird, very similar to the bigger petrels but acts like an albatross and has the longer wings. Also black beak.

A pair of the big gold collared birds still with us - trying to get really good sharp photos but the damn things won't stay still.

More on Golgafrincham. That was the name of the original planet so Arthur called them Golgafrinchans. I have a feeling all the lawyers were with them too and they spent a lot of time arguing, forming committees and getting nowhere. My golgafrinchan day was filled doing useless odd jobs. Just a silly joke for the HGTTG tragics.

John S in Hobart - thanks re Kiwiprop and Albatross man. I would be really interested to go through the photos with him if he has time. I think I'll make a calendar of the best photos and see whether we can make a quid for CanTeen or some other charity.

Norm - the real challenge is finding all the extra words. I'll let you know if I find any!

Carol, tks for ISS.

Chris N and the mob in Canberra - g'day and HNY. If you are interested enough, there's a good computer program called Stellarium - comes as an add on to our Winastro celestial nav program but probably accessible separately.

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Golden birds

Position 0630 16th 4443 05818 trip 102 DMG 101 - on target, just! A very rough calculation says it has taken us about 2 weeks longer to get to here that last time, corrected for stops in Lisbon and CT - result of bad guess up near the equator and getting stuck in the Agulhas. One lives and learns. AGW, about 40 sailing days from here to Hobart.

Middle watch:This one will just expand until the position report at 0700. There's been no berrimilla2 mail for a couple of days so if anyone is waiting breathless for a reply, I'm afraid it will have to wait until Steve gets back to his computer.

Ferals: the booties got an airing, if that's the right word, a couple of days ago and I can still hear the excited chatter from inside the foetids. Colonies of them cling to my socks and interbreed when I take the socks off and park them in the halyard bag next to my bunk. I have to speak to them severely when they try to get into my sleeping bag. It's coldish now down here, so we are just scaly rather that sweaty (hope you're not having breakfast) but it does mean that one doesn't have to recycle clothing quite so often.

Albatrosses - a couple of the really big ones, too hard to identify exactly but Snowy, Tristan or NZ (faint possibility may be large Southern Royal). Waited for ages this morning, Nik and trigger finger poised and finally got the shot of the bird with reflected sunlight - big, glowing, golden, gorgeous. I'm lost for metaphor or adjective. Much harder to get the same effect in pink at sunset because the bird has to be ahead of the boat to reflect and way more difficult to photograph. Another photo, mostly luck yesterday, of one of them transformed from tight, streamlined, aerodynamic curves and angles - rather as if it had been disassembled - coming in to land, feet hanging down, head up and awkward, wings semi folded, angle of attack nearly 90 degrees,, feathers awry in the airstream. Slight loss of dignity - white chinned petrels already parked in a gaggle scattering as this flapping discombobulation splotted into their midst.

And since writing that, the big one with the pinky orange collar is back - nothing like that collar anywhere in the book, though the bird could be any of the three big ones.

Under the red planet

We are now south of Tasmania. I've gone on enough about the night sky - tonight Mars actually looks red - much redder than Betelgueuse, which is just dull orange. Luminous ocean again. Wearing my arctic balaclava in the cockpit to keep the uninsulated shiny bits warm.

Yesterday - or was it today? Neurons in decline - an aircraft contrail crossed above us - heading west, perhaps on the great circle from Sydney or Perth to S. Africa. A bit of a surprise. Must be a wonderful view of Kerguelen and the other islands from 6 miles up but unusual to have a really clear day to see them.

No contact with Kerguelen yet. We are assuming that if we do arrive, they won't tell us to go away. We've exchanged SMS messages by satphone with Alessandro, now nearly 500 miles SE of us and we have spoken on the radio to the skipper of the NZ research vessel Kaharoa, about 400 miles NW, engaged in laying Argos buoys out here in the extreme boonies. A real Kiwi voice and we've established a schedule to talk each day. Nice.

And so far, suspiciously easy. Softish day, brilliant sunshine, a couple of new albatrosses. One was a Black Browed, medium sized, breeds in the Falklands where we saw lots in 2005. The other, I can't identify. A big one, grey head, white collar and seemed to have grey underparts, pinkish white bill which might have had a dark spot towards the end. Dark on top with the usual white patch between the wings and mottled shoulders. White flecks on or close to the primaries. While it was with us there was also a tiny storm petrel frolicking around us, so we had both extremes of the albatross family (the big one weighing in at 10 kilos or so, the Stormy at a few hundred grammes - sparrow sized). The usual graceful Prions and big gaggle of white chinned petrels.

Now windless and wallowing, expecting a NW change later and a bit of a blast tomorrow sometime.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Just a position

Position 0630 15th 4355 05614 Trip (corrected for reset)109 DMG 107. Sparkling, glorious day, Prions in full flit, delicate grey patterns against the icy blue water.

No contact yet with Port aux Francais so I'll keep this short.

Norm, Pete would like numbers please.

Prodding for the sake of it

Middle watch again - now nearly 4 hours ahead of Greenwich and the sun is nearly up - tends to ameliorate the horrors! - it's been one of those crystal nights, no haze, stars so bright and close it felt as if you could touch them. Just a bit cold and damp out there to sit in the cockpit and enjoy the experience. During the night, we cracked 10,000 miles from Falmouth on the GPS and I missed it. I now know that the GPS trip counter does not count above 10k nor does it automatically reset to zero so I have lost some miles, perhaps about 30. Now manually reset and counting again from zero. It seems colder here than it did up in the arctic ice - odd. The air is very dense and carries a lot of water which condenses everywhere.

We are tooling along under a big high, just the headsail and as usual, rolling about a bit, making about 4.5 knots towards Kerguelen. Alessandro, south east of us, is making 6 knots and will pass south of Kerguelen on Sunday night. We intend to go northabout and into Port aux Francais if the weather allows. We are about 5 days out if the grib is accurate - due for a blow from the NW in the next 24 hours.

Malcom, Biggles was probably driving a Catalina, ex Cape Town or Reunion. Doesn't all that Boys Own stuff seem quaint - yet I read it ferociously and no doubt assumed its values. The way we were.

Norm - I can't do numbers. No probs digging a hole with ergro but!

As a safety and sea survival instructor, struggling to undo the zip of my sleeping bag at midnight when Pete woke me this morning, it occurred to me that sleeping bags are really bad news in any situation where a roll or even a bad knockdown is a possibility. Doesn't take much imagination to see why.

No takers yet for bird photos - not as many birds out there today and mostly white chinned petrels.

Piccadilly circus in the southern ocean

Position 0630 14th 4313 05359, trip 125, DMG 115. The usual - lumpy, changeable, damp, sunny it's all happening. Now brilliant sunshine, still blowing white crests off deep iridescent blue sea. Cold enough to notice. I have resurrected my arctic sleeping bag, bought in Cambridge Bay in the NW Passage. Pete has his old down bag and bivvy bag from the original gig. Have to keep them really dry - neither designed for boats but lovely and toasty and difficult to get out of.

We have learned that most of Kerguelen is closed to visitors because of various research projects, so we are now heading for Port au Francais. We are trying to establish some sort of contact, to get permission to enter the harbour and I'll keep you posted on that one.

There's someone else out here - apparently Alessandro di Benedetto is just south of the Crozets, about 250 miles away, trying to break the round the world record solo unassisted in a 6.5 metre boat. That's all I know so far - sounds like a mini-transat. If so, I dips me lid! We are trying to contact him as well. Apparently he has a website.

I've been asked to explain Golgafrincham. It's a joke from HGTTG - Arthur found himself on a planet populated by telephone sanitisers, management consultants, motivators, colonic irrigators, bog roll pointers - all the people that Douglas Adams seemed to think the world could quite happily do without. They had been part of the population of a doomed galaxy, embarked in special space ships to find another home in the universe. What they did not know was that they had been deliberately separated from the rest of the (Useful!) population of their original galaxy in their own space ship and diverted to a small blue planet on the outer edge of an insignificant galaxy - and so became the early citizens of Earth. You really have to read the book...

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

Life, the universe and everything

Position 0630 13th 4239 05130 - about level with Bicheno in Tasmania and about 200 north of the Crozets. Trip 99, DMG 92 and Kerguelen 774 (in case anyone is actually following us on a chart, I'm using a waypoint about 90 miles north of Baie de l'Oiseau as my DMG marker so your numbers may not equate exactly to mine. I'll change it as we get closer).

Tomorrow - the grib says - will be pearshaped with 35 knot (read 50+) northerlies blasting down a big front behind the current high and 40 kts forecast for the Kerguelens. We should be about mid way down and we'll do our best to deal with whatever we get. Iff we get really lucky, it will then soften gradually and we might get a reasonably clear window for landfall. Pace the Examiner, of course, and the Great Statistician, Mr Murphy.

I forgot to announce that we have a new Medical Person aboard - she comes from Windhoek and her advice and her medications so far have been excellent. Something other than an Irish accent at the Consultation for a change. I have a drop of her elixir to hand as I write and I've just demolished a bacon buttie. Life is good.

More unoriginal silliness inspired by Brian Greene - as we seem to be (to the universe and our surroundings) relatively low entropy clumpy collections of hydrogen atoms with interstellar distances between them on a quantum scale - what is a thought? What's it made of? What is the nature of consciousness? How is it that the clumpy collection that prods this keyboard can create and process and transmit to you lot the concept of a superciliously superior albatross laughing at out dopey inadequacies as it soars and glides around us? And why and how would I ascribe supercilious superiority to an albatross anyway? There must be a lot of people out there working on the answers.

What an interesting bit of spacetime this is. And in a few billion years, physicists think it will be gone, not a wrack left behind, just hydrogen atoms. Eventually - perhaps - just a cold and dark void with about 5 hydrogen atoms to the cubic metre. Rather fewer than the magic 42 in HGTTG. Enjoy it while you can and help others to do the same!

Antarctic Prions in full flit - small,lovely, graceful birds, grey/blue feathers on top, white undersides, wonderfully aerobatic - I have a photo of one half way through an Immelmann. White chinned Petrels in and out of the mizzle - wet, clank and dammy but good breeze taking us SE. Another brief glimpse of the big black bird that looks and acts like an albatross. I think parts of the belly are white. It doesn't hang around - one fly past and it's gone for the day.

Mizzle

Cook's fog, I think. Mid latitude convergence zone conditions with cold and warmer air mixing over cold (?) water as the pressure systems swirl and merge and coriolis exerts its magic.

We're in it now - today it seems thin and the sun almost gets through occasionally. There are thicker patches with quite large raindrops and mistier areas with tiny droplets that soak everything. As I look out of the window next to my head, I can actually see the glow of the sun and the top of the mist like low level cumulus reflecting the sunlight. Nice breeze - a bit like doing hull speed with the kite in fog in the English Channel in the Fastnet. Quite eerie.

But the point of this is that it gives one a different perspective. Looking down sun, to the SW, the mist is bright and reflective - hint of a rainbow - but under it you can see successive grey horizons looming out of the murk - the real SW swell that is sometimes very hard to pick amongst all the confused wind waves caused by the rapid changes in direction in each successive system. These horizons are impressive - high and grey and travelling and as one passes beneath the boat it sometimes happens that the next one is just looming out of the gunk 300 metres or so away. Suddenly, you're in the real world and you get a feel for the size of these things - there's this deep rounded trough falling - lurching? - away below your eye and up into the summit in the distance and although they are significantly smaller than we experienced west of Cape Horn, they are still Big. West of the Horn, you could lose a cathedral in the trough, here, perhaps just a small town hall and adjacent public lavatory. Plus all the little birds.

The sun is poking through - my hands on the keyboard have warm sunlight on them. Local time is about 1300.

The Black Dog prowls the Boonies

Seems my Pilgrim in Despond post stirred a pot or two. I was trying to put into words the sorts of weirdness and insidious despair that one sometimes has to overcome to pursue silly gigs like this. The final line was supposed to soften it but obviously didn't! I can remember when it was not acceptable to admit to emotion, when to tell it like it sometimes is was seen to be a sign of weakness - C.S.Forester's Hornblower books weave it beautifully. A reflected example, though I have a sneaking feeling that I've used the story somewhere else in these blogs but it bears repeating and does the stiff upper lip rather well - Imagine the Duke of Wellington on his horse surveying the battlefield at Waterloo during the most desperate moments of the battle, surrounded by his staff, Generals in full uniform, aides, runners, the full retinue. Shouting, screams, cannons, smoke, stinging eyes, choking breath, death and blood everywhere. One of Wellington's senior commanders had his leg taken off by a cannon ball as he sat on his horse next to Wellington - 'By Gad, my lord' he said 'I've lost me leg!' By Gad, Sir' said Wellington 'so you have!' Just about sums it up really.

Back on Iridium. Propagation and range to Africa station now makes daytime HF impractical.

The French, Cook and the later navigators wrote extensively about fog down here - lots of it, arrives suddenly. Cook in Resolution sailed 300 leagues (how long was a league - my hazy memory says about 3 miles?)in it in company with Discovery without losing contact - amazing! We were in thick misty drizzle this morning, visibility half a mile max - I think it's the mid latitude convergence zone standard murk, at least out here. We were in it for days out of NZ last time. If we get to Kerguelen, it may be different.

Alan B in Xhaven - your beanie performing mighty service cosseting the noggin. Other toys work with TPS dry suits. Noice - tks.

Norm, the best we can do is observe that each of your words is symmetrical after the first letter so can be 'wrapped' and read backwards by end for ending that letter. Is there something deeper and more mysterious?

A couple of notes from Malcom to round it off:
Last October, Japanese scientists reported that they had put small
forward-looking video cameras on albatrosses to monitor the birds'
behaviour. The results showed that the albatrosses followed pods of killer
whales and that they fed or scavenged on the detritus of whatever the whales
were killing and feeding on. Whether this behaviour evolved from the birds,
over the ages, following boats, or whether boat - following evolved from
following whales one may never know.

malcom again

AW, BTW Biggle's flew into the Kerguelens after the war in search of German
treasure in "Biggle's Second Case". As you will recall he also beat you to
Tierra del Fuego.

Blimey! Is there no end to this white anting? What was he flying? Were Algy and Ginger with him? And where did he land??

The other old fart..

Hi there its Pete
Yesterday I woke for the early morning watch at at 0300 UTC which is just after 6am local time. Scratched the sleep from the eyes then noticed something unusual out the back door, the sun was up. The sky was blue a few clouds about and the seas were calm. During his watch Alex had taken taken two reefs out of the main and had poled the full headsail out to port. The boat was ticking along beautifully at 4-5kts. with about 10-12kts. of breeze on the port quarter.
These rare conditions deserved some early refreshment, grabbed a couple of Guinnesses from the medicine chest, got the dogbowels out and half filled them with chips and then, see if Alex was interested. He was well into sleep, decided to leave him there and get out and enjoy the sunshine. Suitably satiated then dropped below to check the blog and came across "The Slough of Despond". The first paragraph ended "the magnitude of the task ahead seems too unending, too frighteningly loaded against our weary decrepitude". Well I thought you can count me out of the weary decrepit lineup this morning. I went back to the cockpit took the shirt off, fresh aired the armpits and felt the warm sun soak into my back.
I can fully understand Alex's mood that night I've been through it many times before but to distract myself through these gut wrenching times I reflect on the good times, mostly things that happened when our children were young. I can remember on the last trip when we were in a storm off the bottom of Africa, we had been under bare poles for a couple of days, I was sitting on the floor legs braced against the opposite side to hold position as a procession of huge waves continually knocked the boat over and sideways down the wave. To distract my mind from the obvious I would recall time spent with the kids on a small farm up the mountain not far from Kiama south of Sydney. It all came back in full technicolour and at the end of it all I'd ask myself "what am I doing here". That question has never been fully and honestly answered.
So lets get back to the children. Jeanne and I have four of these treasures, the eldest had a birthday just a week ago, he turned 32 and I was 32 when he was born. We arrived back at the CYC in Rushcutters Bay just 3 weeks before he was born having spent the past year sailing home from Greece via the Atlantic and Pacific Trade Wind highway, though it wasn't a highway 32 years ago, that was well before satellite navigation. His birthday is in the first week of January which unfortunately clashes with the Sydney Hobart Race, there goes 13 of of his birthdays for which I was not around. I do remember I missed his 21st, 25th and 30th. This year at the towards the end of February, our eldest daughter turns 30 and at the end of March the youngest turns 25. I'll make the last one but the the other looks in doubt.
Now that I've put this on paper it all looks decidedly slack, birthdays have become movable feasts and we have the alternative one when I'm around, but its not the same. I just thought of another thing, we were married on the 27th of October, I think (I used to remember this because it was the day the junta took control in Greece and we couldn't marry on the 26th because of a public holiday, there used to be huge billboards everywhere celebrating this day when we were there). Unfortunately this always seemed to clash with with the Lord Howe Island Race, so as you can see none of this was my fault.
All of this reflection was probably prompted by a book given to read by Manuel whose house and family we stayed with in Cape Town. The book was "Patagonia and Tierra Del Fuego Nautical Guide" an impressive and weighty tome of a couple who have spent 7 years putting together this book which contains information and hand drawn charts of the hundreds of magic anchorages in the fiords of this area, a must for anyone wanting to spend time there. One part of the book I was interested in was about the culture of the local people, one thing that struck me was their belief that when you are young your time or life is a gift from your parent, life progresses your time is yours and then you reach a stage where your time is borrowed from your children. Its fairly profound when you think about it, I think I'm there now. I'll leave you with that to reflect on. Cheers Pete.

Position

Another quickie from OF1 as OF2 has burst into print
Position 0630 12th, 4152 04942, trip 107, DMG 118 !! We must be down in the south circumpolar current at last. VoA rising and the water really starting to feel cold when applied to the nethers.

Latest Position

Posted in the UK by I & G.

Golgafrincham - and a question

Position 0630 11th 4104 04720, trip 106, dmg 106 - efficiency at last! 984 to Kerguelen, 4365 by rhumb line to Maatsuyker, less if we go further south towards the great circle - ugly front due tonight then soft high pressure systems for a few days. Won't be comfortable.

Day 19 from Cape Town. A Golgafrinchan day today - we'll sanitise the telephones, dispense fragrance throughout the office, facilitate meetings, fold a pointy end into the bog roll, ask everyone how their day is going. And I will shave.

The 2 Amsterdams are still with us, as well as the orange necked 'southern'. Indian Ocean Yellow Noses abundant, Various Prions in flocks mingled with White Chinned and other petrels. Swirling masses of birds, thousands, sometimes albatrosses slow and serene - scornfully imperial - in their midst. Wish I could send you photos. Breathtaking is an overused word - there's laziness in Golgafrincham today - like people always 'crashing' out of the tennis, there always being 'gobbets' of fat in the soup, sloppy stuff. But sometimes it really does take the breath - elemental, transfixing and seared into the polished surfaces of all 3 neurons never to be erased. Paradise but for the weather!

All y'all - is there anyone out there who would like to acquire a folder (unedited) of hundreds of bird photos? Some pretty good, though mostly telephoto so some distortion and loss of sharpness. Images in both raw and .jpg basic. Freebie, but perhaps donation to Albatross Conservation Fund or Berri iridium tin? Will have to wait until we get home, if that ever happens. We may have been diverted like the Golgafrinchans. Let me know and I'll make as many copies as needed.

SJ - with glitch in Africa station, did you get my reply to Speedy query? Separate note to follow re other stuff but losing propagation with Africa as range increases so may do via iridium in next day or so.

Neither Tryffid nor Jackal

The day of the albatross. Several Yellow Noses wheeling and soaring, often in formation and with petrels. Lots of petrels, mostly white chinned, some smaller. Occasionally a Storm Petrel.

A completely black or dark brown bird, albatross sized, massive white beak, not in the book. Possibly a giant petrel.

Another really big one, perhaps a snowy or southern royal - white underparts, dark white speckled top, white patches, flesh pink beak with orange tip, distinctive pinky orange neck band. Neck band not like anything in the book.

And what I think is one of the rarest of all - an Amsterdam - breeds only on Isle Amsterdam 1500 miles away and only 120 thought to exist according to the book. There were at least 2 of them.

Another, not immediately identifiable - dark all over except for head and neck, mottled/speckled brown with brown 'mohican' yellowish beak, darker end. Possibly a variant Amsterdam.

I have photos of all but the black one. Entirely possible they are all maturity or seasonal variants of distinct species.

I hope there's someone out there who is interested. If anyone can offer clues as to correct ID, please do!

Typical convergence zone conditions. Humid, low overcast, occasional drizzle, not much wind. Wallow and flop and roll. Poo!

Seems the Africa sailmail station server is down again. No incoming and I've tried several times to post bloggery and to retrieve gribs and no go. This via Iridium. If you get the earlier posts three times on the blog, my apologies. Perhaps the omnipotent SJ will notice and delete. If so - tks!