Delivery Day 16

37*36 S 000*55 E. We crossed the Greenwich Meridian at about 06H00 this morning and are finally back in the Eastern hemisphere.
Bright sunshine, a moderate NNE breeze, a long, rolling swell from the west and U2's "Beautiful Day" at full volume - what more could you want? Well U2 at full volume seemed to finally attract all the Albatrosses in the area with several Yellow-nosed and Black-browed albatrosses showing up soon after day break. Later Phillippa reported seeing the first Wandering albatross of the voyage, a huge adult specimen. I missed it but later saw a juvenile, which differs only in colouring from the adult but which is equally massive. These birds have the greatest wingspan of any flying bird in the world, exceeding the beam of this boat! Perhaps only the Condor can come close to being as impressive as one of these gliding giants. The Wandering albatross literally spend years at sea and circumnavigate the globe, never needing to return to land after they fledge. They only return when they are ready to breed and then they return to the exact same nesting site that they were born in. They nest on several of the sub-Antarctic islands and two years ago Phillippa and I were privileged to get up close to a nesting colony when we stopped at Crozet Island, en route from Cape Town to New Zealand. Today's picture is of a Yellow-nosed albatross, a considerably smaller species, but nonetheless a still impressive bird.
We are starting to see more varieties of Petrels and Shearwaters but I must admit that except for a few obviously marked species, I am a bit weak on identifying these birds, so won't try it here!
Yesterday we saw two fishing vessels in the distance. They were very far away but appeared to be the Oriental type that often call in to Cape Town for servicing.
I'm not sure what they are looking for down here but suspect they may be after Patagonian Toothfish, which gets amazing prices in Japan.
ETA is still Friday evening / Saturday morning. The latest GRIB data shows steady NNE winds on the top of a high pressure for about the next 48 hours. After that we have a bit of tricky navigation to avoid the calms at the centre of the high, but if we are successful the wind should back into the SW and later the SE, giving us good downwind conditions to Cape Town. Friday looks like strong SE winds at the Cape, so we will have to watch the final approach carefully. If we are delayed at all we may have to contend with a developing coastal low on arrival. Anyway, let's not get ahead of ourselves, we still need to negotiate this high.