Wednesday 2nd April 2014

Today was a cold one. Minus twenty seven with very little wind, so there will be a lot of flying done today. Last night was another very good night with very good Aurora displays over the ship. The clear sunny conditions we have at the moment have bought on some spectacular mirages. The type of mirage we are seeing at the moment is known as a “fata Morgana”, which is a complex mirage in which objects are not only distorted, but elongated vertically as well.

Our horizon looks like we have a vast number ice berg “skyscrapers” at the moment when in fact that is not the case. It is easy to see how these types of mirages caused navigation problems for early explorers.

I spent the morning working on my annual report, fixing up my email account and editing my radio log. I also had a chat with Kim on 10m who was driving around Perth. After lunch I spent the afternoon chatting to people around the world on my radio and I worked on my annual report till about ten o’clock at night until I was satisfied with it. Around three o’clock I got up to look out the window and there was a pretty good aurora display going on. I watched it for a while and then went back to bed.