“Up at 8.15 Doing about 4 knots an hour all day. Joey was very successful this morning & caught a large molly-hawk which measured 8ft 2 inches from wing to wing.

The skinning process has been gone through and the bones will make capital pipe stems, the feet make good tobacco pouches and the skin itself is a beautiful white on the breast and brownish black on the back. He has peppered it well and if it turns out well he is going to send it home. I hope he may be able to catch an albatross before we get to the end of the voyage. Very wet for the evening so we turned in at 9 sharp”

Extract from A.Whelen’s Australia travel journal sailing from England in 1878 aboard the iron clipper ‘Hesperides’