Saturday July 29, 1922

Lat: 17.57 N. Long: 17.30W. 308 miles.

A perfect summer day – and hot! A blue sky, hardly any cloud and a smooth blue sea.

We saw shoals of flying fish today leaping from the water and skimming along its surface in groups and singly for quite considerable distances. To the unaided eye they look almost like sparrows flying until the little streak of white foam marks the spot where they dived again into the sea.

These fish lead an unhappy life:

Leaving the sea for a moment to escape some marine enemy they become the prey of sea birds. But the numbers we saw showed that plenty swim on, in spite of their precarious existence!

Another example of sea life of which we saw was the Argonaut  - a floating shell fish,  fan shaped and of a beautiful pink colour it sails edge up among the waves like a little canvas sail (hence the name). A wave would sometimes knock one flat but it would quickly right itself. They passed singly at intervals of some hundred yards – quite small but very pretty especially with the glass.

The heat caused a curious illusion hardly perceptible with the naked eye but markedly visible with the glass. This was a jagged, uneven appearance of the horizon instead of the perfectly straight line was are accustomed to associate with the skyline at the sea side at home. The appearance is of course just the hot air rising and causing distortion of objects in the distance. This is the same as the “watery” appearances seen on hot days on land, or over the funnel of a steam roller or locomotive.

We passed two big ships today, they seem so companionable when there is nothing else in sight by sea.

Our smoke is drifting away at right angles – that is today eastward as we sail southwards. We can see no land but we are on a level with the Sahara desert and its baking sands which cause (by day) a great upward current of air which draws in cooler streams from the sea and so our smoke is drawn towards the great continent – thus we can feel its presence although we cannot see it. Overnight the conditions are reversed and we shall have a land breeze since the land cools quicker than the sea. The clouds go south (approx.) as at Tenerife.