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Wednesday 23rd March
Hello everybody, sorry this is late, I was too tired last night, but it was a good thing I waited until this morning because we saw another aurora last night, another greenie. It wasn’t as bright as the last one, and the moon was full, so that probably bleached some of the colour out of it, but it shimmered and waved like a neon green curtain. I was in bed but Frances came and got me and I went up and lay on my back on the monkey deck and watched it until I got too cold. Yesterday was another day of not very much happening, painting, writing, organising the voyage T-shirt and in the evening the three artists on board, Frances, Margo and I, all gave a talk about our work. Frances is a musician, so she played us some of her music, very funky, one of her songs, By Myself, with her band Hecate, took them to the USA for a couple of years. Margo is recording Antarctic sounds, so she talked about her work and played some of the sounds she sends to her ABC website every day ( I think her web address is on my web page ) and I showed some slides of my stuff.

Today’s a beautiful day, blue skies, and the sea is so clam it feels as though we are floating down a river, but I’ll tell you more tonight, with best wishes, Alison

Thursday 24th March
Hi everybody, today ( its yesterday now ) was another day steaming along to Macquarie Island, in calm seas and fine weather, not nice enough for sunbaking, but ok. The most interesting thing I did all day was to play an elaborate practical joke on Keith, who is going to be the ranger on Macquarie Island. Two of the young men who’ll be on Macquarie with him, Rowan and Chris, had tried to set him up with a bucket of water a couple of days before but missed, so they were keen to try again.

I’ve been taking lots of photos to use in paintings, so I asked Keith, and Peter Cusack, from National Parks Tasmania if they would pose for a photo. I went into a lot of detail about how I wanted them in their green freezer suits against the big red door on the helideck, so the vertical lines on the door contrasted with the bulk of their suits, and that red is the complimentry colour of green, etc, etc. The real reason I wanted them there was that Rowan and Chris could be hiding on the monkey deck above and tip their buckets of water from there. Francis came and videoed it, and they were quite unsuspecting, though Peter told me afterwards that Keith said, just before he got drenched, that something didn’t feel right. The ship rocked a little just as the boys tipped the water, so it missed Peter completely and drowned Keith.

We were rolling about with laughter afterwards and the video is very funny, but Keith was a bit grumpy for the rest of the day and it made me think about how practical jokes are not always so funny for the people they are played on. Anyway, now I’m watching my back, I think revenge will be coming, happy easter, alison