Tales from Tern Island: Written Sunday 13th December: More albatrosses than you can shake a stick at.

The Kahana finally left Honolulu at 1.30am on Monday 7th December. As we boarded, reports were coming in that Hawaii was experiencing the biggest ocean swell to be seen for 30 years and that the north beaches of Oahu were being closed to the public because the surf was too dangerous. So it was with some trepidation that I went to bed that evening, fully expecting to be woken in the middle of the night being thrown violently around my cabin and decorating its walls with vomit. In fact I did not wake up until morning, and although the cabin was indeed swaying from side to side, the overall effect was rather pleasant and soothing. I lay there for a while congratulating myself on being made of such stern stuff that even the 30-year storm had not made me seasick. Must be because I am descended from hardy, seafaring British stock, I thought. Feeling a little smug, I went down to the galley for breakfast, where my smugness was deflated somewhat when I found everyone else tucking into a hearty meal, with not one person feeling even the tiniest bit queasy. It turned out we were experiencing some of the calmest conditions anyone could remember.

My cabin- notice the complete lack of vomit

The cargo deck

The pointy bit at the front

Sarah and Melinda find a comfy spot

Sarah pretends to be the captain

The voyage turned out to be uneventful. We chugged along at a stately 10 knots, passing the islands of Kuau'i and Ni'ihau on the first day then passing nothing but open ocean on the second day. There was little for us to do and the gentle rolling of the ship was strangely hypnotic, so I ended up spending a lot of time simply staring out to sea in a trance.

Passing the time on deck

On the morning of Wednesday 9th December we finally arrived at French Frigate Shoals and by 9.30am were standing on Tern Island. After two days at sea this was something of a sensory overload- there were birds everywhere. Most obvious were the albatrosses, of which there are two species breeding on Tern, the Black-footed albatross and the Laysan albatross. These birds nest on the ground in a shallow depression and their nests cover every part of the islands except the runway. There are currently somewhere in the region of 5000 nests plus a lot of non-breeding birds who just like to hang out (or as one of the biological montoring protocols descrined it 'banded and unbanded birds can often be found loafing in the colonies'). Almost immediately we witnessed the extraordinary 'dance' of the albatross. It goes like this: two albatrosses stand facing each other and perform a series of moves, each mirroring the other. The moves include waggling the head back and forth, exaggerated head-bobbing, clicking the beak rapidly together, raising one or both wings and inspecting their own armpit, standing on tip toes and finally throwing their head skyward and making a kind of mooing sound (Laysans) or a triumphant shrill whistle (Black-foots). This is the raw beauty of nature at its finest.