Lost in the Indian Ocean

I wrote this yesterday (Jan 24th)

Just after 12 noon today the Finnmarken set sail out into the Indian Ocean in an effort to avoid the tropical low that is expected to morph into a cyclone, hitting Barrow Island on Wednesday. The handheld GPS that used to be in the MFO cabin was transferred onto the Gateway last month, so I won’t be able to plot our course as we transit. Based on the angle of the sun and the direction of the swell, we are heading in a northerly direction at about 12 knots. I’m going to practice navigating with the stars tonight (although I have no idea how). I do know that my favorite constellation Orion should appear over the horizon to the north, and I’m assuming the Sothern Cross is to the south, or points south somehow. The storm is predicted to hug the coastline, and depending on how it tracks when it becomes a cyclone, we may end up several hundred miles out to sea…Singapore would be nice.

I’ll probably spend most of my time on deck watching for seabirds and Cetaceans. I’ve already counted about 20 sea snakes, several dozen Wedge-tailed Shearwaters, a couple of sharks, numerous flying fish of various shapes and sizes that I've watched glid at least 300 feet, and a possible Masked Booby ( I didn’t have the binos handy and couldn’t make a confident identification). It was flying like a booby, and had enough white on it to make it a Masked rather than a Brown. The creamy tan sea snakes with dark brown horizontal stripes are literally everywhere, which leads me to believe that the depth we are traveling in isn’t great. I can’t imagine a sea snake diving more than a couple hundred feet. From what I remember from looking at maps before the internet cut out, the continental shelf has a gradual slope on this side of Australia.