Weather worsening. At 9:30 PM anchored in Owens Channel in Flinders Group of islands, for a gain of 36 miles for 12 hours of running. Wednesday, February 18 Up anchor at 6:15. We stopped at Flinders in hungry anticipation, to do some line fishing, hunt for turtle's eggs, and try to harpoon a dugong. The crew boys got out their "WOB" (Torres Strait harpoon), I put out a fishline, and that was that. When we anchored we heard the whistling noise of dugong as they came up for air on feeding grounds nearby. Our mighty food getters decided to get busy at daylight. When day dawned all thought lay in getting away, so on we went in the teeth of the south-easter, as queer a crew as ever sailed this fabled sea. Smith, the skipper and owner, is an ex-officer of the Australian Navy, a good navigator but a poor seaman and ship's master; talks loud and long, and loses his head when anything goes wrong. "Panic," said Bally the mate, "is doing f---- all at the double. That's Smithy." I agreed in that, but not to Bally Connolly, chief trouble maker on the ship. Called mate, but all he does is cook. A landsman who recently had an interest in a T.I. pearling boat, and now wants Smith to go pearling with the Lochiel. For 12 years he did the Tivoli Circuit with performing ponies and dogs. Walks like a horseman, and has red-rimmed trachoma eyes. As crude and low-down an individual as I have ever met. Have never come across a man I have judged so foully base and unprincipled. Banjo Patterson drew a character like his in the "Bastard from the Bush". Almost as mean, I should think, but in a nicer way, is "Doc" Doherty, the engineer, and Bally's former pearling partner. Drank himself out of a good mechanical engineering business in Sydney. Standing watch for watch with the skipper, but not on the payroll and with no business interest in the boat, is a smart young German known as "Gun". How this man happens to be loose, no one seems to know or care. Holds a German first mate's ticket. Fought with the Nazi armies in Poland, France and North Africa, and was captured by the British at Tobruk. Sent to Australia as a POW he was used as an interpreter; escaped, and according to his story, served on American transport vessels until the end of the war. Since then, he has been master of a Burns Philp steamer trading in the Solomons and New Hebrides. Is on the Lochiel for the ride and when the trip is over will go to Sydney to take delivery of three small vessels and take them to Singapore. Very interesting fellow; smart seaman, and very military in a gold braided cap. With these men I occupy the small wheelhouse--cabin aft. Forward in the fo'c'sle, with the three native crewmen, is a fearless young white of beachcomber type, called Don. Supposed to be working his passage from Cairns and back to Cairns, I believe. He does no work and eats and sleeps with the blacks.