Tuesday - Feb. 17, 1948 Distance - 297 miles Day 18 Hrs. 50 Speed 15.87 knots 297 from Auckland; 980 to Sydney. On Board 3/s Marine Phoenix Lat. 34-24 S Long. 170-58 E Course - Various (267° at 3:pm) Up at 5: a.m. - Air mild, calm sea, no breeze. Sun glow lighting up the high clouds. The Black Headland of "North Cape" was outlined against the southern sky on our port quarter. Petrels were everywhere around the ship - also Gulls, Both Black-backed & Red-billed, White-fronted terns, Austr. Gannets, and last of all I finally saw my first Wandering Alba- tross! Before the morning was over I had seen at least 8, in varying states of plumage, floating on the water, paddling the water rapidly with their feet trying to take-off, sailing in the light airs, but this was difficult in the high airs, and they had to flap a great deal. On the water they ride high and look like one of our Black-backed Gulls. The S.W. swells were surfing on the headlands around Cape Maria Van Diemen. The sun came up quickly & almost directly in our wake. Gannets were diving & Petrels swarming on the water over a large school of fish. Soon the Three Kings Group rose up out of the morning mist and sea to the N.W. & as we came closer the saw-tooth row of rocks called Princes Islands stood out jagged & clear. Turdott in his book "N.Z. Bird Life" has a short account of a visit to these islands. Someday, as Mr. Murphy is now doing, I should like to revisit this land of Sea-Bird Islands and spend weeks on the islands, not just minutes looking at the islands. The numbers of birds of the various species are extremely hard to judge in an area such as this. Visits to the breeding grounds would be essential & several census transects would have to be made. However, for this particular morning run (with a counting range of roughly half a mile on each side of the ship) my estimates run: S. Black-backed Gull (L. dominicanus) (mostly ship-followers) 12 Silver Gull (L. N. scopulinus) (some ship-followers, many from 3 Kings) 50 Austr. Gannet (Moris Serrator) 35 Wandering Albatross (Diomedea exulans) 8 plus 3 following ship at 3:30 p.m. White-fronted Tern (S. s. striata) 4