A pair of Spectacled Petricals

Well, that's how it comes out sometimes – try repeating Spectacled Petrel fast. There are now two of them and I have photos of one which might be sharp enough for the blog – very difficult to get focus right with long lens, moving boat and fast moving bird. They are about 700 miles from home on Tristan da CunhaA remote volcanic group of islands in the south Atlantic Ocean. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world. Tristan da Cunha is part of the British overseas territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha. More on wikipedia..

Sitting on the front of the high, VMGVelocity made good – loosely, speed in the right direction. for Cape Town lousy but we are hoping that it will improve significantly as we get further knocked and tack. Just as the Pacific Ocean was trying all the way from Sydney to AdakA city on Adak island (Aleutians, Alaska) and a former US naval base. in the Aleutians last year to push us back into our box, so it seems that the whole of this huge stretch of the South Atlantic is moving North West at about 2 knots – the North West flowing Benguela current is supposed to be much closer to the African coast. So we've done a lot of sailing, tried some tacks to see where the best VMGVelocity made good – loosely, speed in the right direction. happens and there ain't no good combination of wind and current out here just now. The ExaminerShe who asks awkward questions of the crew and tests them with difficult tasks. being snaky.

Malcom, thanks re isinglass – we've always used vaseline which works just as well but the trick is to make sure there's lots of it evenly spread on the shell and doesn't always happen. We only chucked two out of 4 dozen so not bad – so to speak.

Duncan – you've been busy! Red jacket out of hiding and operational. Needs design tweak – I shall write to Henri Lloyd and see whether they are interested.