Oct 18, 2005 – 0900hrs UTC

0900hrs 18 Oct 2005 UTC 40’19”S 006’15”E Ref 452

[ed: decision is to head for Fremantle – the sun is currently shining]

DB: 91 gps 101 6294 (SECape) 5292 (Freo) Yesterday and the preceeding few days were pretty awful, especially yesterday, for radio and generator reasons as well as general convergence slime. Today, we have bright sparkling sunshine, thousands of birds again, mostly a variant of the ones near TdC but some bigger beautifully patterned guys – all soft greys and flecked bands – plus the black topsided guys with the white splodges – these are magnificent in the sunlight – the white parts glisten and reflect.

We have the solar panel feeding the battery so I’m going to risk that and ask for the next gribWeather files. Graphics in Binary file: GRIB files associate a specific weather datum (eg wind velocity or atmospheric pressure) with a geographic position. Because the resulting file is a collection of these points they are extremely small and so ideal over slow links such as sailmail. as well. Will send one whenever we can, else shorties by satcom.