Spoke to Carla - wonderful - made my day!
First time in weeks that conditions have allowed this - if you are being tossed bodily around a confined space, fiddling with very delicate sim gates and trying to keep everything from flying around and also dry is not really a goer. Anyway, I swapped sim cads between handsets. The xsat sim does work for data in both handsets, but not always first time, every time. Sometimes it is rejected before dialling, sometimes while verifying at the very end of the connection process, and sometimes it connects so I think it must be a problem between the sim card and the handsets. As my original C & W sim works fine in both handsets, perhaps the xsat sim may have slightly flaky contacts - I dont know. WD40 on a tissue perhaps? I have tried again to dial the xsat sim's own number - 00881631633526 - and the automated 'please do not hang up' voice tells me that the number is 'not in service please check the number' and I do not get as far as the voicemail prompt to enter a password. I can live with this, but it does indicate that something is wrong somewhere.
We're motoring - a couple of albatrosses with us all night and this morning - 6 ft wingspan. dark grey brown over wings, white body but black around eyes, light beige beak, grey brown under wings but with whiter dappled streak along the length mid chord. Remind me of the Falklands black browed version. Stunningly beautiful birds, sweeping majesty as they caress the water - you can sometimes see the downdraft on the surface when its mirrored. They fly out in front, always approach from behind or one side, and sometimes alight on the water a hundred metres or so ahead and watch us pass. Big birds, but nowhere as big as the southern wanderer.
And we have our own Stormy Petrel - opposite end of the scale - appears to flollop along diving, swerving, almost tumbling over the surface - requires enormous precision - I've seen them in huge winds blasted by spray just doing their thing - a real delight to watch.
And back to Cook's decisions - he'd be becalmed again, not even able to move in this. We can motor north - completely different attitude to time and the achievement of objectives.
