From Pete

Pete writes
I've been moved to write due to a distinct lack of something to do. I'm now towards the end of my two night watches, the sun is coming up, Alex has just appeared so I'll make my way to the fridge to extract a couple of Murphy's for breakfast.
Aggahhhh much better.
We put in a good days work last Sunday. By the end of my night watch the wind had dropped to 6-8 kts and boat speed was down to 3-4 kts, this was perilously close to "turn the key time" so a suggestion was made that perhaps a kite might solve the problem of keeping boat speed above the 4.8 kts required to reach Cape Town by Sat. the 5th.
Up it went a nice new flat assymetrical from the craft of Brian Shilland. True wind was a little aft of the beam so it wasn't long before we were getting 5-6 kts as the apparent wind increased and moved forward to about 15 to 20 degs ahead of the beam. We had a wonderful run all day but by 4 in the arvo wind was above 15 kts boat speed was mostly about 6 7 sometimes 8 and we were still up on course, as they say we were hoooooning along, with a huge grin and a "Whoooo Hooooo".
The problem with Berri and the old style deep keel mid to heavy displacement type of boat is that they have to push a lot of water out of the way to move forward. As a completely bare boat she weighs 5.5 tons, set up for a voyage of 14000 miles she probably weights in at say 7 tons. This means that she has to get 7 cubic metres of water out of her path. Of course pushing water out of the way is easy at low speed but as the speed increases it gets so much harder to displace the water quickly and eventually the boat reaches its maximum hull speed. The boat now moves in a trough created by the bow and stern waves.
If the wind now increases and the boat speed does not and you have a kite up then things start to go decidedly pear shaped very quickly.
The obvious question is how do you get the kite down with one steering and only one other to bring the sail in. How do you control the halyard drop and gather the sail at the same time.
Alex and I have competed the last 3 Fastnet races in the 2 handed division, you learn a lot from the single handers over a beer after the race. One trick we learnt was to throw the halyard in the water, first it avoids tangles as it streams out the back and a few figure 8s on the end puts just the right tension on to control the drop. The kite is then gathered in through the slot between the mainsail foot and the boom.
We had decided earlier on to pull the kite down at about 4.30 which would give enough time to repack the sail and tidy all the bits of string up before the bar opened at 5 for a G&T. The wind never got to the point where the sail was threatened and we doused it easily using the above method. I'll write more now as all the good books have been read and all the little jobs that can be done at sea are crossed off the "To do list".
A footnote to Allan. Fenwick are you OK we havn't had an abusive letter from you yet?
Woc. So you found me. Is Graeme back for Christmas and will the stock market have recovered by then?
Cheers Pete.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

5 Degrees West!

Fresh from the Falmouth Photos cutting-room floor comes a sequel to
the video "Berrimilla's Journey Home to Australia."
For those who missed the first one (or can't be bothered to slog
backwards through the links) here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-TUJ-J5fgA

For the second one, go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fxdBDRK01U

This second video was made as a result of the Chain Locker Crew in
Falmouth celebrating 5 Degrees West in the bar last night. You'll see
them all (still upright) at the end of the video. Cheers, me hearties,
and thanks to Paul Harry of Falmouth Photos.
http://www.falmouthphotos.com/

Posted by Iz in the UK

Thalassarche chlororhynchos (Atlantic yellow-nosed Albatross to you)

With an avian write-up of such rapturous heights, I'm sure we readers
as one, wish to take a squizz at the Atlantic Yellow Nosed Albatross.
Trying to find a copyright-free image of the bird in flight has eluded
me but here's one of it contemplating its navel, from Wikipedia. It
is posted there courtesy of http://www.plos.org/oa/index.html - to
whom grateful thanks.
To see the bird in flight, go to http://www.arkive.org/atlantic-yellow-nosed-albatross/thalassarche-chlororhynchos/
where there are several more images, and a video sequence of its
breathtaking flight.

At opposite ends of the arc

0700/26th position 3023 00109, trip 109, 1009 to Cape Town so 9 miles to the marathon half way point and a celebratory Talisker moment.

From Gordy:
hi alex pete berri
just a quick one to let you know drinks were taken buy the crowd in the
chain at 1800 24/11 as promised good few in attendance carny paul pauline
tall paul shane tim the fish and a few from ponsarden photos to follow
sign off now ok take care guys
keep her going boys
gordy

A truly inspirational gathering of poets, philosophers and other seekers after the truth - onya chasps! We were right there with you in pious spirituosity!

Correction to my last - Fred Watson's red giant may have been only the size of earth's orbit - still no dried lentil. Idle thoughts about all this were followed by one of the longest burn up plumes from an object entering earth's atmosphere that I think I have ever seen - from our position 30.13 S 001.36 W time 0148/26th November, track roughly SE - NW, perhaps 320, altitude at the start about 30 deg and it flew almost to the NW horizon directly under Orion. Very fast, very thin trail, not a lot of light but spectacular.

Sue of the yellow piggy - erk! But thanks for storm surf info about southern ocean swells - I was close after all and they have been with us all day.

First Albatross

Oh wonder of the Universe - can there be anything so lovely anywhere between here and Squornshellous Zeta? I think it's an Atlantic Yellow Nosed albatross - black eyes, grey head, yellow line on beak, white rump, grey uppers and white underparts with black leading edges underwing. The definition and depth of colour of its markings seem closer to the Bullers which lives in the Pacific. All depends on yellow lines on the beak and subtle differences in plumage - I have some reasonable photos but the beak is indistinct, unfortunately but I don't think there's a second yellow line under the beak. Anyway, a joy to behold and I do hope that if life has evolved amongst any of the galaxies that have been around for the last 13 billion years or so, Albatrosses are part of it. Perhaps Herschel will tell us.

And we just crossed 30 S. A bunch of opportunities to listen to Vogon poetry and mother-in-law jokes coming up as we sit with our favourite medical consultant - there's the Greenwich meridian about a day away and 1000 to go in about 70 miles. Then we will pass Sydney just before we get to CT and maybe even Wollonging if we aim past it to beat the wind and current. Plus our albatross. Yay and wooohooo.

Pete saw a ship! So much excitement in a day - I am faint and trembling with whelm.

The moon has just gone down in the west and the night sky has come to life - all those potential albatrosses out there in the universal boonies - Berrimilla's own intimate 14 billion year slice of space-time. Gravity is in the eye of the beholder - s/he who first drew an outline that linked the stars into constellations. Orion's belt now satisfactorily defies its northern hemisphere creator and dangles upwards - Sirius, Castor and Pollux, Procyon and the rest of the mob in attendance and the Pleiades nebulating happily. I'd love to have a stable platform and a telescope out hers! Space is really really big and there's so much stuff to look at! Fred Watson, my favourite astronomer, told me there's a red giant out there with a diameter larger that our Solar system. Coo! Makes poor old Betelgeuese look like a dried lentil.

Carol, thanks - we'll do our best - these systems give us lots of cloud cover so iffy at best.

Scott - no chance we'll make Hobart for the post S2H shindig - most likely end January. Where are you these days?

Enough already. This is going via iridium.

Vogons in the parking lot?

0700/25th position 2928 00248 trip 97 and desperately slow, mostly powered by diesel 1109 to CT
Radio dead once again.

As I write this, around 1830/24th, (yesterday) we are celebrating passing 5 deg W early this morning. I hope the Chain Locker mob is in session too, preparing for another six pints or so before dinner. Onya everyone!

We are a bit over 3000 miles from Cape Horn which is at 57 degrees south 68 west. South of the Horn is the 600 mile passage across to the Antarctic Peninsula called Drake Passage - Drake was never there (he sailed through the Strait of Magellan) but this passage spans a strip of the southern ocean that extends all the way around the world. It sits astride the westerly current and the band of fierce westerly winds that also extend around the world. Waves and swell in this band have an unlimited fetch so they can become really huge if storm conditions persist over long periods as we experienced four years ago. Here now in Berrimilla at nearly 30S, we are a long way north of this band of ferocity but I think we are just beginning to feel the big southern ocean swells that sweep up from the Horn and the intense low pressure systems down there and across the South Atlantic towards Africa. We have a SW swell with a wavelength of perhaps 150 metres, height perhaps 5 metres with the occasional wave that seems to be very much bigger. Someone will check the satellite data and tell me I'm wrong - always very difficult to estimate wave height from within. Anyway, they are not anywhere near big enough to lose a cathedral in the troughs as you could below 40S but perhaps the top edge of the influence of the maelstrom. A taste of things to come and the Examiner asserting her authority.

Much later - swell now dropped, along with what little wind there was - in serious wallow mode.
Later still - 0600/25th - the swell is still here, but smoother and so less obvious at night but can see it in daylight.

Deborah, thanks! - I'll write to you separately when the radio comes back, meantime you don't need permission!

Ron C and perhaps Carla - an odd sighting: position 29.18 S 003.01 W @ 01.56.30 UTC Nov 25th altitude about 45 deg, azimuth roughly south - a single white strobe, flashing every second or so without the usual flickering red and green and secondary strobes that usually go with passing aircraft. I saw about 10 flashes then it stopped - possibly a patch of high cloud - and did not reappear. It had the feel of being very high or distant and I could not discern movement against the background stars but it was really a fleeting glimpse anyway. Vogon mothership perhaps - do Vogons have mothers?

Malcom - many thanks. Warning noted - just like the Falklands, where kelp rafts are like solid islands, some of them anchored to the bottom and marked on the charts.

Sue - Pinkbok says Hi and what were you thinking of when you sent me out with these idiots? Hope the lurgy dissipating.

Latest Position

Posted by I & G in the UK.

The sound of one ball drifting...

0630/24th position 2859 00428, trip 130 and 1202 to CT required VMG for Dec 5th now about 4.5kt. It's a bit like limited over cricket - balls left, runs to get, wickets to fall. Drip feed instant gratification, to coin an oxymoron.

We crossed 5 deg West at 0045 this morning - We are now east of Falmouth and 4750nm south after 6314 miles! Gordy notified four hours in advance and we will celebrate this evening. Dank, drizzly, overcast, windless - just trickling along.

I've been checking Berri's systems prior to CT so that we can get recalcitrant gizmos fixed. Have just cranked up the SatCom C - an Inmarsat C device. The equipment seems to work and it logs in to the East Atlantic region but will not transmit messages via the Land Earth Stations predefined in the software so I assume there must have been some sort of amendment since I last used it (probably at least 18 months ago as it is power hungry so only used as emergency backup). Would appreciate advice if anyone knows - else will get on-line latest version of Easymail software from CT to check for changes.

Steve sent us a list of howlers from the current crop of higher school certificate exam papers in English. I rather like this one: 'The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.'
Shades of a softly Taoist Sei Shonagon and her list of things near yet distant - in her case 'The course of a boat'.

Nostalgia 3

Me. I seem to be the serious one, as usual. We actually had to go to about 75N to get around a big ice field in Lancaster Sound - sadly, freezing rain and big icebergs meant we were just not able to make it to Beechey Island and the NASA HMP Camp. At the time I wrote this one it seemed that the really hard bit was behind us and so it was, but there was still a lot of nastiness to come, especially dark nights and ice in Davis Strait (but overwhelmed by swimming polar bears and the most glorious auroras) and the Atlantic crossing which destroyed the old engine. It's all there on www.berrimilla.com/tng if you can be bothered to wade back past the spammers' desecrations.

Alex

Kimbra's watch and we are almost as far north as we need to go to round the northernmost point of Somerset Island, just east of Cunningham Bay. So - in an hour or so we should be able to head east, then south east. No more ice visible, Cornwallis just there on the N. horizon and a lighter patch of cloud where Beechey should be, about 45 miles away. Worth just a tiny wooohooo! Pascal's dotted line is ok so far - we can't test the Beechey bit but we'll pick it up again soon.

As for clothing I thought a detailed list might be interesting. On deck, I wear my brown fisherman's super tough wellies, aka Sitka Slippers, with sock liners and fleece socks. Glove liners and insulated industrial rubber gloves. From the skin out, a thermal vest with long sleeves, T shirt, no knickers or thermals over the nethers (because they promote the most agonising gunwale bum) so a fleece mid layer known as salopettes, with a fleece hoodie on top. Sometimes a balaclava and neck tube. On top of all that, a Mustang survival suit or a float coat and Henri pants if it's not too cold. Goggles if it's snowing or windy.

And it has come to pass - at 1750 UTC Sunday August 17 we turned east, then south east at 74.12.10.3N 093.57.28.2W. Half way Consultation is occurring. Slightly bigger Wooohooo!

And keep 'em crossed please. Looong way to go yet.

Nostalgia 2

This is McQ feeling cold

McQ

oh how I wish the oreo cookie monster would leave me alone!!! he hangs out shivering at the end of my bunk while I am off watch, desperately trying to ignore him, though its hard as he looks so blue and fluffy and unmonsterlike and pathetic, then when I come on watch he sort of attaches himself to me and won't leave me alone, till I relent and eat cookies, despite my constant protesting!!!

To jump on the clothing bandwagon too, which i think I just win, I have on:
1 pair thermal socks
1 pair thick fluffy socks
1 pair ziploc bags (yes these count, they might be the most important items infact!!)
1 pair leaky boots
1 set of underwear, actually bikini top and bottoms\
1 pair thermal legs
1 thermal top
1 midlayer salopettes
1 fleece top
2 midlayer jackets
1 oilie bottoms
1 oilie smock top
1 pair fluffy gloves
1 pair sealskinz gloves
1 pair waterproof outer shell gloves
1 neck warmer
1 thermal balaclava
1 hobart beanie
1 windstopper balaclava
1 fleece hat with ear warmer bits
1 pair ski goggles
so thats 29 individual items...yes, 2 pairs socks, 3 pairs gloves and four hats... its making me cold thinking about it!!!

Oh how I sometimes wish the oreo cookie monster was a heater instead, then he could hang on to me all day and night long, and I wouldn't mind at all!!

Hope everyone well and warm
Lots of love
McQ
xxx

Nostalgia, part 1

I have just cranked up the incredibly ancient and scarred old Toughbook from the first voyage and the Bass Strait roll and found some old blogs from the critical bit of our North West Passage transit last year. I think they are worth putting up again here. All from 17/18 Aug 2008

Kimbra's post

You've heard of gorillas in the mist, but today we've had belugas and snow! I've never seen a beluga whale before, but I have to say it was love at first sight. To me, these small whales are superficially more like oversize, white, friendly dolphins. As Alex said, we saw a small, loose pod of about 6 belugas around brekkie-o'clock this morning. One appeared to be stalking us, so maybe word has got around the whale-world about Corrie's close encounter off Barrow and they're out for revenge? Anyway, most cool!

The weather is also (still) most cool. So far, it's snowed on 3 separate occasions today. My Alaska keychain thermometer is still telling me it's 10 deg C, but I'm rapidly losing faith in it. My cold-toe-ometer is telling me that it's probably a little less than that. Cold enough to break out the hot porridge with dried apricots and maple syrup for breakfast. Yum.

While I hate fog, I'm really kinda fond of snow. There's not enough of it (yet!) for it to settle, and we're definitely not talking snowmen either, but it's very peaceful. And makes a nice change from the rain. It's starting to settle on the hills bordering Peel Sound, and dusting parts of them a light grey against the dark blue-brown rock.

Nearly around the top of Peel Sound. Another 50 NM until we hang right and turn east along Barrow Strait and Lancaster Sound towards Greenland. So 50 NM to go to my mental halfway point, where we stop heading away from the edge of the world and start heading back to civilisation.

Anyway, my fingers are too cold to hit the right keys on this miniature keyboard, so I'm heading for my bunk. Wake me for dinner in bed in an hour or so...wonder what Corrie's cooking tonight?

Night all! K.

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Almost back to where we started

0630/23rd position 2822 00644 trip 143 and 1327nm to Cape Town. Closing on the half way point at 36 k in the marathon.

Still hooning - genoa poled out, pointing at CT, averaging about 6kts. Soft spot due later today and much bigger one tomorrow. Dec 5th arrival still on the cards. Will depend on the behaviour of the high behind the one we're about to enter. Big to-do list for Cape Town.

Lots of birds following us - I have so many floaters in my eyes these days that looking at the horizon or trying to focus on a bird is a bit like reading newsprint - takes time and concentration, so a bit of jizzery later.

We should cross 5 degrees west tomorrow so we will have completed the huge arc to the west to get around West Africa and the South Atlantic weather systems and be back due south of where we started. We shall celebrate - if you're reading this Gordy, I'll blip your mobile with the satphone. The journey will start to become very different from here. There ain't no 'Beam me up Scotty!' once you get down into the southern ocean below Africa.

Wimping along

I'm a wimp when it comes to flying kites out here - potential for big and unnecessary stress on the rig if things go pearshaped and all the other complications of bits of string everywhere. But Pete was persuasive and we've had our racing assymetric kite up for the last 3 hours and we are hooning - trying really hard to stay in a line of wind that I think will die with a line of cloud to the west of us. Last time we flew it was from the Fastnet Rock back past The Lizard in the Fastnet where it picked us up about 100 places (luck as well, of course, with a massive wind change as we rounded Pantaenius)- so, Mr Shilland, a good little engine and just right for these conditions. Still more or less on target for Dec 5th arrival with 1436 miles to go. Kevvo is driving - I'm watching him because there is still some swell and if a big one catches the stern, it throws us sideways and gives poor Kevvo a completely false apparent wind which gives him the hiccups.

Later - since I started writing this, I've been hand steering for a couple of hours because it's too much for the electric autopilot as well. The wind is strengthening and I think freeing us and we may have to drop the kite soon. I saw our first Portuguese Man 'o War (Bluebottle for the Australians) quite a big one, deep blue sac with crenellated fringe on the top edge and half moon curve so they drift with the prevailing wind. And a white bird settled on the water - unusual as most of them here are brown or black - orange beak, white head, black slashes around the eyes, grey flecks on top of the body and wings and two long straight white tail feathers - hard to judge their length but at least as long as the body. Not in the albatross book but somebody will know what it is.

Later still - we dropped it in time for a relaxed meeting with the Grindy - was building a nice fat quarter wave so time to douse and get the boat upright again - lost perhaps half a knot but the knuckles no longer grey.

Norm - thanks! Wish we had one of those machines.

Will i? Won't it?

0630/22nd position 2740 00918 trip 130 and 1470 to Cape Town. Required VMG still 4.8 for AM Dec 5th.

G'day to the Crosshaven RNLI mob and RNLI crews everywhere. I decided that today's breakfast Murph which I'm quietly savouring as I prod the keyboard, would be in your honour, especially as in the conditions we're told you are getting up there, you have probably been very busy.

Gerry Fitz - give the Fenwick a call - if he's not totally stupefied, dozy old fart that he is, he's got a really good story to tell you and you can use it immediately to edify your punters. Buy him a beer - he earned it and someone orta give him a gong.

If this is a short one, the HF radio is back - I never know from email to email whether it will turn itself on when I press the switch. It came back last night for long enough to send the grey rainbow thingy so let's see now..

A rainbow in grey

We are as remote as it is possible to be in this huge ocean. Last ship a week ago, before that, another eight days to the previous one. Not an aircraft, not a space station, nothing human. Macca for ten minutes a tribute to technology and a welcome interlude.

How can I describe this night to someone sitting in front of a bright computer screen at home or in the office? It's as if we are inside a huge faintly luminous grey sock. Shapeless, untouchable gaseous void filler in thin foggy grey. We're sailing on soft grey-black velvet, invisible, shapeless but substantial, with the loveliest of phosphorescent twinkles in a rolling greenish halo of disturbed water flowing past. You feel the motion - it's experienced, without the usual frame of horizon and clouds to mark the boat's passage. The sails a darker mass in the void. Swooshing surging burbling water noise and the swish of the wind generator with its gentle undulating whine as it fires wiggly amps at the batteries, its tiny red LED glowing in the shapeless grey. Instrument lights at their dimmest grey - juuust readable but even with the acutest night vision there's only the feel of the change in density between velvet and gas at the horizon. Masthead lights brilliant arcs of pinpoint colour leaving painted trails on the retina - green light reflected off a masthead aerial making a surface patch in the velvet out to starboard. Sometimes it catches a ripple and turns it into glowing life for a second or two. The usual clunks and creaks that are the atmospheric noises off in any sailing boat. Gentle breeze on the face - tonight a caress but always out here with the hint of

Or just a dank and dismold overcast night if you'd rather do without the hype...

Freaks of the airwaves

Just possible there may be another Macca gig sometime after 0700 Sydney time Nov 22, 2000 UTC Nov 21. ABC Radio Australia, program Australia All Over.

SJ - instructions not followed! So much for reinforcement - and the HF died again just as I'd downloaded the 3 liner with the half page of unnecessary crud attached. Grateful if you could advise no more emails possible unless relayed through you but phone ok. Iridium too precious for extraneous garbage. Murphyalatermate.

Quickie to catch the propagation window

0630/21st position 2700 01132 trip 110 (all over the place...) and 1596 to CT

SJ - thanks mate and assumed as much - but never any harm in a bit of reinforcement!
Izz 'n'G Kool and gluey doods - thanks too.

Another trawl through the wheelie bin.

In a Eureka! moment, while engaging the neuronic trio in an explanation of the difference between magnetic and true courses I discovered (stumbled across) the origin of phosphorescence. Nothing to do with dinoflagellates, just the detritus of sloppy navigators. Everyone knows that Einstein hated the idea of entanglement in which one of a pair of particles can be shown to be 'known' to the other no matter how far across spacetime they may be separated. He called it spooky and kept trying to find an explanation because it appears to defy his general theory of relativity. Navigators have known about it since Prince Henry set up shop at Sagres - if you draw a line on a chart, all those entangled particles on the chart have their spin established by your pencil and all their partners out here on the ocean fire up and make a glowing line on the water that corresponds to the line on the chart. Then you come out in your ship and sail along it and before you can say dinoflagellisticexpiallidocious you have got to where you were going! Good, conscientious navigators always switch off the excited particles on the ocean as they pass so as not to confuse us lot who follow but we're not all so punctilious and phosphorescence is the result - terazillions of those excitedly spinning particles left behind by sloppy navigators higgledy-piggledy all over the ocean.

The difference between magnatic and true will have to wait - not half such fun.

One for the mythbusters if they haven't done it already, or any competent mathematician who can find the numbers. I have heard it said that there is a significant chance that in any day you breathe air that has been circulated so comprehensively by the world's meteorological systems to the extent that any breath might contain a molecule from Nelson's dying breath, or one of Henry VIII's belches (or worse) or Nefertiti's sneeze or a dinosaur's bellow. Presumably, the further back in time the more likely. So what are the chances that a molecule in the air I'm breathing now was once breathed by a slave building the Sphinx?

Or in similar mode, the human body is mostly water, which is circulated in the same way - what chance any part of me was once in the bilge of Leif Ericsson's Viking ship on the Greenland coast? Or of the puddle that Raleigh spread his cloak over for Elizabeth 1? Or even part of Raleigh before she had him shortened by a head for being presumptuous?

Enough already!

On ignoring the oblate shape of our spheroid

The GPS has two sets of numbers upon which we gaze with hopeful yearning - our latitude and longitude co-ordinates. Each reads degrees and decimal minutes & right now our latitude is 26.07.897 S read as twenty six degrees seven point eight nine seven minutes south. For the navigationally challenged, one minute of latitude is equal to one nautical mile so we are roughly 7.9 miles south of 26 degrees. The last digit (the 7 of .897) is one thousandth of a nautical mile or about 2 metres so as we sail along, the numbers increase or decrease depending on our direction. We are heading south west, so the latitude numbers (degrees and minutes south) are increasing by roughly 0.005 for every boat length we sail. The longitude numbers (now 012.38.023 W) are decreasing by roughly the same amount. Only roughly because a degree of longitude at 26 south is less that a nautical mile. Purists, please ignore the problems raised by diagonals and oblate spheroids for this little exposition. For the first time for what seems days, both sets of numbers are counting in their respectively correct directions. South is increasing and west is decreasing. YAY!

Another concept is Velocity Made Good or VMG. This is a calculated number based on our course and speed over the ground relative to where we are going. It is almost always different from our speed through the water and our speed over the ground but it is the best indicator of how efficiently we are sailing the boat and choosing our courses. On the last tack, our VMG for Cape Town was about 1 knot - then came the wind change we have been crossing all the appendages for and we tacked and now VMG for CT is 4.2 knots - much better but still not good enough to get us there by Dec 5th. We need a constant VMG of about 4.8 for that. Our speed through the water is about 6.2 knots and speed over the ground is 5.4 knots so we are in an adverse current of about 0.8 knots. Our required course over the ground for CT is 130M and we are actually making 167M which explains some of the discrepancies. Perhaps another burst on the difference between Magnetic course (M) and True course (T) and variation in another post.

Deborah, thanks for ISS and Atlantis info. As you can imagine, a big news hole out here - can't even get the Beeb world service without major hassle. I'm about to try using the mast as an antenna. Big Hi to Andrew - the Needles in 90+ knots I can only imagine.

Another word of explanation: Our ISS viewing times are roughly the 20 minute periods before sunrise and after sunset - while the ISS can see the sun and reflect its light towards us if they are anywhere near us bur as the sun is below our horizon the sky is dark enough for us to see the reflection quite easily.

Norm - thanks - jeers and ribald laughter from the crowd is what gets one foot out in front of the other again and again in those last 6km.