WINDY

With any luck this will be my final full day of work on this swing. The morning started off pretty typical for the weather we’ve been having; heavy monsoon rain squalls and about 20 knots of wind. It’s midday now and the rain has lightened up, but the windows are still wet, not with fresh evaporative water but with salty water hurled off the tops of swells and over our bow. The wind has now doubled, approaching 40 knots; the sea has taken on the appearance of a foamy mess, one giant herd of sea sheep. Despite the wind the swell has remained light. I’ve heard that the wind may get up to 60 knots by tonight, one can only hope.


We will be departing Barrow Island around midnight, arriving in Dampier some time before dawn. The crossing is over fairly shallow water, the continental shelf extents far offshore in Western Australia, so I’m hoping it will be heaving rocky ride. Once we arrive in Dampier I am to meet up with a man who has my box of nerdy goods (camera, binos, bird book, etc.) I left on the Finnmarken last week. Than a 20 minute taxi to Karratha, 2 hour flight to Perth, followed by another 5 hour flight and I will be back in Sydney by Midnight on the 16th. From there I’ll have 2 days to stock up on supplies before starting my holiday of seabirds in New Zealand and Tasmania.

That’s the plan at least, one more day to get through before it becomes a reality.