FROM 1-25. Blowing a (super) gale

Oct 21, 2005 – 0350hrs UTC

0350hrs 21 Oct 2005 UTC 39’28”S 011’48”E Ref 467

Local Trafalgar day. We are feeling a bit embarrassed by all your continuing generosity. It is wonderful and we are grateful beyond words but, all the same, unexpected and rather special. Thank you all. It seems we may need to use the SatCom C to stay in touch rather more than I had hoped and I will use your donations exclusively to fund that expense. If there is anything left when we get home, we’ll put it on the bar at the coming home party(s?).

We are just north of the Panzarini Seamount and west of the much bigger Schmitt-Ott seamount. The seabed here is about 4500 metres down and these seamounts rise almost vertically to around 2500 metres. This is very like the formations on which Lord Howe Island and Ball’s Pyramid are perched. I can’t pan out far enough on the laptop to see the whole formation but it looks like the remains of a massive crater – volcano or asteroid strike?

The wind is back – 35+ and, so far, not too savage. We’re running off slightly under just the #4, surfing every now and then. Grey bleak dawn, rain, amorphous cloud, low, baleful and determined. We may have a couple of days of it – I’m hoping to be able to pull in a grib when I try to send this – if not, then the Satcom forecast which is text rather than graphic so less user friendly.

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