Page 5

-6-

Tuesday Jan. 4th. N.E trades rapidly dying out, dull sky becoming
more leaden as the day wore on, and there was a little rain. Almost
flat calm and very sultry. Boys changing sail all day. Second's
watch having its usual "fun and games" - he talks so much all the time.
"Here, you by Jove, etc etc". Very different to the Swedish Finns
who don't say a great deal, beyoung the orders. Poor Tom up and about,
there was some talk of his tooth being removed, but nothing came of it.
Great excitment at dusk, a small shark appeared aft. Chier arrived
and organised fishing for it, it was very promptly caught, hauled over-
side and dragged for'red and cut up (for cooking!) by Corri. Earlier
in the day a large number of Bonitas were playing round the bows: Chief
the cooks and carpenter all fished, but Chief ws the only sucessful
one, he caught a good sized one, which we sampled for dinner, very
good. Capt. a good deal better from what Antonie calls hs "indispo-
siteen", but still says he is not at all well.

Wednesday Jan. 5th. Very hot and sultry and only a very light breeze,
doing one to two knots. Sat about on deck trying to keep cool, and
watching the boys work - mending a foot-rope, patching sails, and some
of the "new chums" were put over the side to chip rust and red lead
the sides of the ship. They took rather a poor view of it at first.
Some very sunburned backs are coming to light, one poor young man with
a fair skin is a bright rose pink, and he has a red and blue butterfly
tattooed on each shoulder!.

Thursday Jan. 6th. A holiday. I imagine it corresponds with "Twelfth
Night" in English. A hot, still, tropical day, but a little breeze
on deck. Below it is terribly close and sticky. Ship quiet all day,
towards evening a shark appeared and caused some excitement. Chief
fished for a long time, but could not hook it. Talking over some of
the new crew with the "veterans" of the voyage to England, it seems the
picking of the crew was a very haphazard business, one almost has the
impression from the "material" collected that any poor waif or stray
that wanted to come, just said so, and Captain took him. (We Australians)
don't think we'd be too happy about sailing with this 'bunch"
round Cape Horn. There are some good men sent over from the "Viking"
but the "bits and pieces" collected at Pt. Talbot are - just that!

Friday Jan. 7th. Very sultry and dark all day. Slept on deck until
2 a.m. as it was so stuffy below. The phosphorous was wonderful,
floating in large lumps like liquid silver on the oily surface of the
sea; where the rudder churned up the water the silver was frosted
looking underneath and the lumps looked like stars, floating about,
it was a wonderful sight, one felt completely fascinated watching it.
I came to sleep below at 2 a.m. as sails started banging and flapping
and were very noisy. Great excitment over fishing all day. Sharks
about - all sizes from a very large one, which was caught, to quite
baby ones. An albercore and dolphin were swimming with the sharks
all the time. Chief tried, unsucesfully to catch the fish. The
dolphin was the most glorious looking fish, irridescent tourquoise
blue with a bright lettuce green tail. Another big shark was caught
at dusk - it contained 5 small ones!! Heavy downpours this afternoon
and tonight - the usual water collecting engaged in by all, and bathing
going on, especially in the for' are well-deck. Thundering now, 11 p.m.