Saturday 22nd February

Out on a flat calm South Pacific again, we looked out at the early morning sea that was like a highly polished, hammer finish, silver tray. It felt like we were becalmed as the ship slipped so quietly and smoothly through the water. It’s hardly changed all day except for tiny ripples stirred by the occasional slight breeze. The sailors of old called this the horse region. Because of the light (or lack of) wind, sailing ships could spend weeks trying to get through to more favourable conditions, so much so that they became very short of rations so the valuable horses had to be sacrificed to ensure survival.

At 11:30pm I went up on deck along with a couple of hundred others for a star gazing session given by Howard Parkin who will be giving his final talk (on Mars) tomorrow. The upper deck lights were turned off and there was hardly a cloud in the sky so we had a great view of the southern hemisphere sky. Using a laser pointer Howard pointed out all the constellations talking us through stars and planets the mythology behind many of them. Although I have been in the southern hemisphere before I had never been able to identify the Southern Cross before and it turns out there is a fake cross much larger than the true Southern Cross which as its name suggests, is often mistaken for the real one. When you have someone who can talk at length about the sky at night and can point as accurately as a laser allowed him to, it made all the difference about what you are looking at especially under a sky that is not familiar to you. We could have stayed much longer but as the moon began to rise, its brightness drowned out the visibility of all but the brightest stars. So we called it a night.